The second assembly of the year exceeded all expectations for students as the entire student body brought the homecoming hype.

The week of October 10th is when the real homecoming celebration begins with traditions such as Hall-Decs, spirit week, and the football game on the 13th. This assembly just previewed what homecoming has in store.

Similar to the fall kickoff assembly, students lined the stands in their green and gold, eager to cheer their Warrior pride. Students arrived at school bright and early to sport green and yellow facepaint, as well as glitter, and as Jan Watt exclaimed, “The Seniors have finally showed up!”

Students were given introductions to the spirit days and events occurring the week of Homecoming, one of the most spirited weeks of the year. The most prominent spirit day to remember will be the pink-out on Thursday, the 13th, which is also the day of the Homecoming football game. The pink-out is to showcase our support for breast cancer awareness month. The Sophomore Leadership class is preparing shirts, bracelets, and donation buckets to collect funds to donate to the American Cancer Society.

Amongst other announcements, Watt gave important appreciation to the Pep Band, stating, “these kids put in hours that no one ever sees.” The band also had the opportunity to perform their rendition of the national anthem and led students in the Fight Song.

This assembly was also a chance to introduce more student-led clubs and committees. The Cleveland Alliance for Racial Equity and the Black Student Union had the opportunity to announce what they have to offer and to encourage students to get involved.

The Sun Dancers and the cheer team also got the crowd hooked with their tradition of performing with new partners. The cheerleaders cheered alongside the football team who showcased their unseen talents of breakdancing and hip hop. The Sun Dancers chose boys to dance alongside them in a fast-paced routine involving partnering and solos. “I really enjoyed it,” Sophomore Elsie Kloeppel commented about the Sun Dancer routine. “I always look forward to it.”

Speech and Debate also got involved as Mr. Gonzales, the head coach of the Cannibals, announced that they will be going for their 6th OSAA title this year.

Cleveland’s own, AB Osman and Nuradiin Hillole also put on a show with their hip hop moves that had the crowd cheering and on their feet. “I thought that was just fun,” Activities Director Eric Mirsepassi said. “It’s not something I’ve seen in past assemblies.”

The vibe of the assembly quickly changed when Junior/Senior Leadership representative Rosie Allison-Brown put out an important announcement about a controversial topic at Cleveland; dances. The Leadership class recently decided to postpone the homecoming dance after several reports of sexual assault and misconduct. She announced that the postponement will allow Leadership to have time to hopefully reform the culture of dances at Cleveland and to create an amazing dance. Leadership has left a drop box in the office for comments, concerns, or suggestions regarding the dances in any way. Many students have been left feeling like they will never get a dance at Cleveland, however Brown’s statement made everyone feeling like their dances will be better and safer than ever.

With this homecoming assembly being a very spirited event, games were a necessity. The first game, musical hats, was a warm up to the relay where each class’s homecoming royalty was brought down to represent their class. The relay involved shaving cream, blindfolds, and high action leap frog. The relay also included each class’s hall dec theme relating to Dr. Seuss. Freshmen represented “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”, Sophomores with “Horton Hears a Who”, Juniors with “The Cat in the Hat”, and Seniors with “The Lorax”. The Seniors won the relay by a landslide, but the classes were eager to be introduced to their 2016 royalty.

This assembly was successful overall with far more entertainment than the last assembly. “The energy just felt a lot better [than the last assembly] and all the acts were a lot more fun and people were able to get into it more,” Sophomore and Class President Gwen Kaliszewski commented on the assembly. However, a lot was happening behind the scenes that only Leadership knew about. With only two weeks to prepare for this assembly, a lot was done on the spot to make the assembly happen.

“I think that the assembly was a success in terms of us getting a variety of people involved, and in us having to think on the fly a little bit, because we’re trying some new things in how we organize assemblies,” Mirsepassi explained. “I think the past fall assembly was prepped a little bit better. Again, like I think we had a chance to run through stuff a little bit more, but I think this one included a wider variety of folks and more important issues…” He also explained how it was the hard work of the Leadership classes to put on such a big assembly in a short amount of time. “I try to stay as, in a weird way, as uninvolved as I can so that students can make decisions and make things happen to make this run, so I mean I was definitely involved, but the main decisions of how we ran it and what we decided to do were made by students.”

With this assembly only being the beginning of the Homecoming events, you can be sure that Cleveland will create not only amazing spirit for the upcoming week, but also support for our Warriors at our most exciting game of the year.