For years, Homecoming has rolled around bringing with it class competitions. Each of the classes compete to gain more points than the other classes.

This year’s chosen theme for Homecoming was Haunted Homecoming.

“Haunted Homecoming, in a way was Halloween and spooky things that make your heart start to pump a little bit,” senior Student Body Vice President Dustin Schneider said.

The classes earned points for the class competition by participating in the Spirit Days, class games, float building, and by winning the float judging.

This year’s Student Body president Trinity Callis said her and a committee decided the spirit days were going to be Though the Years Tuesday, World of Harry Potter Wednesday, Class Color Thursday, and Dress Up Day Friday.

Out of all of the events, winning the float judging brought in the most points for the winning class.

“The float was for the homecoming parade mostly, as well it is worth the most amount of points towards the class competition,” Schneider said.

Alicia Brungardt, the STUCO sponsor, said float building is meant to be an activity that brings students together to represent Hays High. Any and every class member was able to participate in the float building.

“We built them [the floats] basically to create a little bit of class unity,” Brungardt said. “It’s a fun project, it helps us to also show school pride because after all the floats are judged and then they are put on display for the public. It’s a way for us to be artistic and have a little bit of fun but to also build a class community.”

Each class got up to $100 to spend on purchases for their float. However, not everyone was authorized to make the purchases.

“This year, we really put out that we are trying to help remind people what the rules are, and the rule is that the only person who can purchase supplies is someone who works for Hays High School. USD 489 has a policy about how we use our credit cards and that’s how we purchase things,” Brungardt said. “So, the sponsors could purchase, parents who work at Hays High could purchase, but not someone who works outside of the district or someone who works at another school.”

As far as donations go, this year it was encouraged to try and stick to the $100 limit Brungardt said. By doing so, it would get students to find innovative ways of using inexpensive materials, and you could have increase your odds of having your class float win overall.

“The more creative you are, the higher you are going to score on the float building than someone who went and purchased more than what they are supposed to,” Brungardt said.

While float building was mainly for the students to get up and work together, parents were involved.

“Parents were actually required to be there, we had to have at least one adult present during the time of building floats and any parent was welcome to help,” Brungardt said.

At the end of Spirit Week during the parade, each of the floats were judged and a winner was selected.

“We had different community members; Ruth and Vern Rudder are two of our judges, Brenda Mader, Caroline Fuller, and Lisa Kisner did agree,” Brungardt said. “So none of them currently had children who were going to Hays High School, and they are from all different walks of life, we have everyone form bankers to artists. I think their backgrounds really created a nice compilation of viewpoints on the final work.”

19kpotter@usd489.com