By: Vanessa Nguyen, Staff Writer
On October 16th, from 7pm to 10pm, our students attended their first event since we were isolated from the world over a year ago. Homecoming is a big night, the first dance of the year. All the students of Mills High School got ready for the big night of music and fun. Food was served and games were set for Vikings to play, while movies were streamed for a long night of fun. Tickets were on sale for $10 and increased as time went on. The eve of the big night, Vikings went head on against El Camino and Mill’s JV team won 28-12.
The theme for this year’s dance is Star Wars. Admittedly, this was not a popular choice amongst the students at Mills, but everyone made the best out of the situation. Dress code has always been pretty loose and our students can wear whatever they’d like. Everyone was excited to see what others wore for their first dance in over a year, and for many, their first high school dance ever. Everyone had fun getting ready and putting together their best outfits for this exciting night. Everyday leading up to Homecoming was a spirit day. Monday was Mandalorian Monday, Tuesday was Tatooine Tuesday, Wednesday was Clone Wars Wednesday, Thursday was Lightsaber Thursday and Friday, each grade would wear their class colors; freshmen were green, sophomores were red, juniors were blue, and seniors were purple. Lastly, the staff dressed in black. Along with the spirit days, Vikings awaited fun activities at lunchtime like relay races and musical chairs, as well as performances from the band and cheerleading squad. On Friday afternoon, they were also treated to an extended lunch. With these spirit days and activities, Mills’ students created more hype and excitement for the grand event.
That night, there were very long lines to get in. The photo booth, unfortunately, also had a very long line the entire night. The DJ was in front of the auditorium, and in front of the English and history hall was the food. There was plenty of junk food, like Oreos, chips, and soda. Games like The Stormtrooper Knockout and Lightsaber Battle were available for play. Fortunately, it was warm, so there was no need to wear coats the entire time. The night ended with the hit song ‘we are young’ by Janelle Monáe and everyone joined the fun by turning on their phone flashlights. Students all had fun dancing together in front of the auditorium doors.
In previous years, the first dance of the year went smoothly. When the virus struck, our world changed. We used to be able to invite our friends from neighboring schools or dance freely through our school with music blasting in our ears, but this year, our school changed up the rules. Covid hit all of us without anyone seeing it coming, and because of that, the administration ensured this year’s homecoming won’t cause a new surge of Covid cases. A mask mandate was enforced throughout the dance; masks were required through the whole event besides the eating and drinking portions of the night. The movie was in the faculty lounge and masks were required in there as well.
Unfortunately, along with the mask mandate, only Mills students were allowed to attend this year’s homecoming dance. Typically students from other schools could come, after getting permission from administration. As much as Mills loves welcoming students from other schools, the safety of our students and staff must be ensured and holding off from gathering more than our school was just to keep us safe. With Covid already raging, Mills couldn’t afford for it to spread amongst its students, or even worse, to students from other schools as well. Mills students had to be content with only their own classmates. Either way, the dance turned out to be a blast despite all the alterations made for this year.
It’s true that we didn’t know what to expect this year. We still want to have fun as students, but we need to make sure that our safety is our first priority. Homecoming finally brought us some sense of normalcy to this weird year. We were able to dress up, have fun, hang out, and even dance, all to a Star Wars theme. Homecoming week allowed us to cheer and fight for our own classes, getting us into the true Viking spirit. We enjoyed planning our outfits and were amazed by the unity of the Junior class on Clone Day. Even though we have more rules this year that don’t go along with our previous plans, we know that we are protected from the harm that came through our lives. Thank you to the Mills administration and leadership team for working so hard to bring us so many events so we could enjoy ourselves at!
