Homecoming week at Nantucket High School has always been an island-wide tradition. Students, parents, and locals alike make appearances at the week’s festivities whether it be the Pep Rally, the Football game, or the float parade that passes through town and mid-island. Meanwhile, at the high school, students and faculty partake in what is called “Spirit Week”, and the grades Freshman through Seniors compete for a hallway decorating contest, a float contest, and a spirit contest. To finish off the week, all of the sports programs participate in annual “homecoming games”, and the night is topped off with a football game as well as the announcement of Homecoming King and Queen.
This year, students, staff, and class governments struggle to organize the events, due to some last minute rescheduling. Traditionally, Homecoming is towards the end of October, but due to a lack of home games for the football team, the Athletic Director Chris Maury was forced to move the festivities to the first week of October, leaving little time for preparation. The Athletic Department, Student Council, and School Administration have been working on making the week memorable, exciting, and coherent. Homecoming week runs into Columbus day weekend giving students that Friday and the following Monday off. Not to mention, the Saturday morning of Homecoming is the last SAT testing session available before the early deadline for the Common Application. Student Council has also proposed a Homecoming dance for the first time which has had a difficult time getting approved by administration. The Student Council originally wanted the dance to take place Thursday, because friday was the day before SAT’s and Saturday night would be conflicting with the football game, but the administration said that we could not have a school dance on Thursday. Luckily, for the floats, the Athletic Department changed their schedule to parade the floats Friday afternoon, allowing both Seniors and Juniors to not miss the festivities due to testing. To follow, the floats will be leading NHS athletes back to the school for a fall dinner, and then later on in the evening, students, faculty, and the Nantucket community, will gather at the football field for the pep rally, prepared by the cheerleaders.
The dance, however, seems like an exciting new tradition to be taking place at NHS. Student Council adviser Daniel Farrell comments, “This is a huge step forward for the school. While we may not have gotten the date we wanted, we did get a dance and that was our main goal. This only leaves room for improvement for the coming years.” Homecoming dance has been moved to Saturday directly after the football game, leaving minimal time for players to get ready. The dance will be a semi-formal event with a blue and white theme. Tickets will be running at 5$ and all grades are encouraged to attend. The dance is scheduled to start at 8pm and end at 10pm that evening. Senior student council member Sara Lombardi contributes, “I’m very excited for this dance and I think it will be a well needed change at the high school. We are also very grateful for the flexibility of Athletic Director Chris Maury in all his assistance with planning the week.” To reiterate, the Homecoming week will be the 1st through the 6th of October with floats Friday afternoon as well as the Fall athlete dinner and Pep Rally after. Saturday will be full of games from 1:00 all the way to 5:00 pm when the Whalers Football go head to head with Monomoy Regional High School. After the football game will be Nantucket’s first homecoming dance for grades 9-12. Make sure to get involved and attend these amazing events and GO WHALERS!
By Anna Steadman
Veritas 
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