The traditions of homecoming, the spirit week, the game, and the dance, can become familiar to students who have gone through it before. But for students new to WS, their experiences can be a little different.

Senior Rua Keipp attended Utah’s St. Joseph Catholic HS last year, where homecoming took place in January, with a homecoming basketball game. Keipp was surprised to see the size of homecoming at WS.

“The school was smaller than the size of our (WS senior) class,” said Keipp. “The dances were a lot smaller, there were like maybe 50 people.”

Homecoming at Keipp’s school wasn’t the first dance of the year; it usually came after two others. As a result, it was not as big a deal as homecoming here at WS.

“We had a spirit week, we had a pep rally, but we didn’t do Hoco king and queen,” said Keipp.

Overall, Keipp finds the WS homecoming experience more enjoyable.

“It’s more hype, there’s more people (participating), its more fun!” said Keipp.

Junior Caroline Guge attended Valley HS in West Des Moines, Iowa, last year, and had  more similar homecoming experience compared to WS.

“It was pretty much the same except we didn’t have Hoco at the school, it was at a convention center,” said Guge. “The dance was the same type of thing and it was still stressful getting reservations and stuff.”

Guge did notice a larger emphasis on the dance in Iowa versus the other traditions, like spirit weeks, that we have here at WS.

“(Spirit weeks were) less fun because nobody did them,” said Guge. “The days were just normal days, pretty much, and everyone just dressed normally.”

While more people participated in the dance and the game back home, Guge finds the sum of the traditions here more fun.

“(I prefer) WS, because there was more hype for it and the dressing up was fun, but Homecoming itself was more fun for me (in Iowa), because the dance was more fancy and stuff,” said Guge.

Junior Annie Krompecher attended WS last year, but she now goes to Chapin HS in Chapin, South Carolina. Krompecher appreciated how the spirit days at WS were more inclusive compared to her new school.

“The Spirit days are less fun,” said Krompecher, “A lot of them were hard to do.” A major difference she noticed was the custom of girls asking boys to the dance. These differences made Krompecher appreciate the homecoming traditions here at WS.

“I’d say WS is better, because it’s more inclusive to all grades, more people participate in the spirit days, boys ask girls and there’s less pressure to have a date,” said Krompecher.