On January 18th, Southern Lehigh hosted the first ever Sparty Awards, a new twist to the traditional pep rally. It featured awards, games, dancing from our very own Southern Lehigh students. Seniors Austin Rivera and Ryan McGinty, along with the Spartan Spirit Club, put in a lot of behind-the-scenes work to ensure success.
“Probably over 100 hours worth of work is put in to create a pep rally,” Spartan Spirit Club adviser Mr. David Dougherty said. “We start with choosing a theme, then creating games and events, then finding a way to create crowd interaction, then writing scripts, creating a timeline, and finally sorting out the bill materials and the supplies we need.”
“It takes a lot of work with the making of the videos and creating the ideas and turning them into a reality,” sophomore Ashley Holschwander said. “Mr Dougherty had the original idea for giving out awards to people; then others helped to build the idea after that.”
The Sparty Awards recognized one student from each class who proudly showed his/her school spirit. The winners of the Most Spirited Award were senior Patrick Kroll, junior Brianna Prince, sophomore Jake Stattel, and freshman Elizabeth Clemmer.
Freshman Brianna Mobley won the Best Reaction to The Gingerbread Man award. She won this award for her freaked out reaction to the gingerbread man running around the halls. She said it was both “interesting and embarrassing.”
The Spotlight staff won an award for all the hard work and improvement this year.
“It was exciting, and cool to finally be recognized for what we do,” Spotlight Editor-in-Chief Casey Anthony said about winning the award.
Other students and staff also won recognition for their hard work.
Michael VanNess won the Inspirational Kindness Award for always showing kindness no matter what. Junior Rachael Brink won an award for always being herself, and never being afraid to do what she wants and how she wants to do it.
Mr. Beaupre accepted the Community Care Award on behalf of Key Club. Sra. Imms won the Athena Award, and did her own little dance once she received it.
The custodians even won an award for always cleaning up after our messes without complaining. Students showed their appreciation with a standing ovation and loud applause.
The Sparty Awards took a different approach to the traditional pep rally that proved successful, and the Spartan Spirit Club has already started planning the next pep rally this spring.