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VUHS Celebrates Homecoming with All Onboard

photo provided One of the crazy but fun traditions of a VUHS Homecoming is costume days including Super Hero Day, seen here jumping with spirit!

photo provided Advisor Karl Steen waits with anticipation to be fed an ice cream sundae by blindfolded students as part of the Homecoming Spirit Activities.

photo provided Let the games begin! Seniors Michaela Bicknell and Lexa Highbee show their spirit and anticipation of the Homecoming sccer games to come.

photo provided VUHS Senior Shelby Sheehan and Senior Class Advisor Sandy Chicoine prove that blue, white, glue, cardboard and spirit can produce great floats and great memories.

Tuesday September 21, 2010

By Cookie Steponaitis

    Another guaranteed sign of fall besides the cool weather, crisp nights and maple trees heralding the coming cascade of colors is a wagon raising and a shortage of cardboard in the Vergennes area. Sure enough, as fall begins, homecoming returns and VUHS swings into spirit building traditions dating back two decades. While no one can seem to pinpoint exactly the date of the first homecoming celebration at the high school, a recent Facebook discussion group pinpoints the building of floats before 1992 and the dance starting in 1998. While no one is certain of the date, there is no questioning the amount of fun, merriment and spirit that is generated.

    Officially beginning with a full school gathering in the gymnasium, 600 strong witness such fun and merriment as the tug-of-war, scarecrow relay race, egg and spoon dash, feeding the teacher an ice-cream Sunday, and eating the cream pie race. At stake are spirit points, bragging rights and a chance for the normal business as usual high school to engage in pure fun. The events are organized and run by the student leaders of the Student Council opening up a weekend that includes creation of hay wagon floats, a huge bonfire, home soccer games and culminates Saturday night with a dance at the school.

    What is just as impressive as the weather of this fall weekend was watching 600 organize, cooperate, conceive and create floats that reflected different children’s television shows. Cardboard, paint, wire, tape, staple guns, and the ever present duct tape were all visible, exemplifying a huge group working together, laughing and watching the clock for the ever present deadline of the 6:30 p.m. parade of floats.

    At the appointed hour over 300 students, in matching costumes and bedecked to match their floats paraded down the main street in Vergennes, showing the curious and the annual attendees the newest floats and spirit of the school. Each class earns spirit points by participating in the competitions and the spirit week schedule of dressing like twins, superheroes, and finally the school colors of Blue & White. At press time it is still unknown if the seniors held their lead established in the games on Friday afternoon.

    At the fire station in the evening another visible community link was evident. Standing guard at the bonfire was the Vergennes Fire Department with officers and cadets that represent current and graduated VUHS students. Enjoying the blaze were teachers, administration, community members and the students themselves. Some gathered together to ward off the nip in the air and others were dancing, singing and running as the fire burned its way into VUHS history.

    To the passerby or the curious this event may raise eyebrows or questions, but to those present it is a tradition as important as the changing of the leaves and the movement of the seasons. Lessons learned at school merge to include the academics and sense of home, community and all the different layers and connections that connect students to home, school and a sense of identity that transcends these spirit events and remains with them into life and beyond.

    The Valley Voice and its staff celebrate this event that makes homecoming more than just a GPS location and a spot on the map. They make it home.

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