By contributing writer Kori Hayward (’26)
Homecoming week is a big deal for high schools, especially to the Red Rams. Adding to the excitement this year is J-D’s first homecoming dance. The dance, mainly created by Vanessa Sobey, was carefully planned out to have a semi-formal dress code.
“I just had the idea, I asked a lot of senior girls after I was elected being like ‘should we have a dance’ because I knew a lot of schools had had a homecoming dance,” Sobey states. She explains that since COVID-19, a lot of schools hadn’t had dances and that they’ve stopped happening. “Ever since then a homecoming dance has never really picked back up.”
Not knowing when the last dance was, Sobey wanted to keep the dress code semi-formal and almost casual. When asked if she planned the whole thing, she explains that the whole executive board came together and that it wasn’t just a one-woman job. “We all did it together, it wasn’t just me.”
“The only thing I really took some decision on it was the homecoming date. Besides that we kind of just talked about what ticket price would be right and that theme we would do and what time what people would like the most. We thought that three hours was too long,” Sobey says. “We just all tried to really envision what people would want to go to because dances have not really been a big thing at J-D.”
While events at J-DHS don’t disappoint, several things including dances have been canceled due to low interest or poor advertisement. This year the seniors had hoped to change that.
“We kind of decided as a student government; how much profit do we want to make?” Sobey explains when asked if there was a minimal requirement for tickets. “We decided around fifty because you still want there to be a good amount of people so you’ll make some profit but we said fifty was a good number where there will be enough people to dance and be there but there will also be enough to make some profit.” When there’s dances and school events, chaperones and monitors are always good, to keep people and trouble at bay. Five teachers monitored the dance as well as the principal and local officers as well as some administration.
During planning, Sobey states that she thought of it over the summer. “I first thought of the idea and I reached out to others and I said ‘I think we should have a dance, I think a lot of seniors want to have it’ and then we emailed our advisor. He helped us say our next steps.”
Sobey also mentions how Lawson agreed to the dance because the PTG wanted a dance as well. After that, they got to planning in September. “It took a while to get used to each other but we hopped in real quickly and started coming up with details pretty quick.”
“I know the senior slate is very good this year,” Sobey clarifies that she isn’t a part of the senior slate, but she was up to help plan any dances. “Depending on how this dance goes, we want to have another one.”
“What we do is that we’ll have some people go out and buy decorations from our council or committee and then they will get reimbursed from the profit that we make and the money that we’ve had in our account for the past couple of years.” She explained when asked about how things are funded.
“I’m excited that we can have a homecoming dance. I know a lot of people have been wanting one or something similar because the dances haven’t been very popular recently. I just really wanted to help bring the dances back to life and help bring something fun to the beginning of the year.” Sobey stated.
