By Daniela Zavlun and Nataniela Zavlun, staff writers

In the spirit of spirit week, freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors compete to claim victory in the annual hall decorating contest. As students walk down each floor, they can see the themed decorations on each locker and low-hanging colorful streamers plastered on the ceiling. This year, Alice in Wonderland decorations cover the freshman floor; life-size Batman comic characters greet students as they enter the sophomore floor; flashy blue ribbons line the junior hallway to replicate the setting of the well-known movie Finding Dory; and the seniors dominate once again with explosive Wildcats paraphernalia. The decorations are also representative of each grade’s Spirit Week color: purple for the freshmen, black for the sophomores, blue for the juniors, and red for the seniors.  

While the sophomores had an impressive hallway of Batman themed decorations, they originally planned to incorporate their grade color into the horror movie It. However, this theme was rejected because it was deemed inappropriate for a high school environment since it contained violent scenes.

This setback may also have contributed to the reason why this year, the freshmen have surprised us with a stunning triumph over the sophomores. Despite the valiant efforts of the sophomore class, many have mentioned that their hallway is not up to par with the high standards set by the other classes. Before the winners of the contest were announced, one of the hall decorating organizers, Adam Stonehill commented, “I think the 2017-2018 freshman grade leaders did a great job, I think the design is phenomenal, I think the execution is really good, and our hallway is going to be better than the past freshmen in the last couple of years.” He recounted, “The seniors usually win because they have the entire day to decorate but I think the freshmen made a great effort and if we manage to beat the sophomores and the juniors, it will have been a successful year.” Though things didn’t quite turn out this way, this was still a huge and unexpected achievement for the freshmen class.

Regardless, some things are still unchanged, as the seniors remain undefeated and the juniors once again championed over the freshmen and sophomores.

One junior, who requested to remain anonymous, said, “From my opinion, I really believed that the juniors were gonna win because genuinely it just looked a lot better and more aesthetically pleasing than the other grades. Even though the seniors won, and I respect them because their hall was very nice, I still believe that the juniors’ hall was better.”

Sophomore Christine Schmitt remarked on the final hall ranking: “I believe that the results for the hall decorating contest were as they should be, and, I mean, I know it’s a competition, but I think every grade did a great job with the hall decorating.”