A Plea for the Parade
Robin Wilkinson, Olivia Smyth, Kathryn Beauchamp, and Connor Peterson
Have you ever watched the homecoming parade? The community of Chelsea gathers to see the best representatives of the high school. Different sports teams, clubs, and students of all varieties are in the parade, providing the town with a scope of what life is like at Chelsea High. Members of different clubs get to represent something they are passionate about and athletes get to show pride in their team. Not to mention the candy. Who could ever have a parade without candy? The point is, if you have not seen one of Chelsea’s homecoming parades, you are missing out.
The theme of homecoming this year is “haunted house,” which is fitting given that lots of people are obsessed with Halloween. In the parade, each class will have their own float inspired by the haunted house idea, floats solely constructed by student council members of each class. The freshman class will be ghosts, sophomores will portray mummies, juniors vampires and the senior class will be devils. A parade fit for Halloween, indeed! Following all of these fantastic, student-created floats will be the Chelsea High School marching band, filled with members who work to make the citizens of Chelsea entertained with some great live music.
Not only does the parade showcase lots of great activities offered in the community, it brings attention to a lot of quality young ladies, as the nominees for homecoming princesses ride along behind the floats in cars. Katelyn McKinley, a student council member and head of the homecoming parade committee, said, “One of my favorite parts of the parade is seeing all of the nominees dressed up. They always look super pretty!” The parade is a great event where students get to support one another. “Mostly it’s cool because students see their own classmates in the parade.” McKinley continued.
The event truly is an exciting, and rather under-appreciated, time in the school year as it starts off the festivities of the 2017 homecoming weekend. What better way to prepare for a fun football game and spooky dance by celebrating all that CHS has to offer? Plus, we mustn’t forget the candy.
Sawyer Northrop • Oct 6, 2017 at 11:17 AM
A parade puts undue stress on students in the CHS marching band, especially as this year the MSBOA marching band festival is the Monday of homecoming week. Members of the band have to report immediately after school, perform in the parade, eat quickly, perform in the pregame show, play stands tunes, play in the halftime show, play stands tunes during the second half of the game, and march back to the high school. This marks two nights in one week where members of the band have performances that last from immediately after school to around 9:30-10:00 at night. Even without jobs and sports, which many band members have obligations to, this marks 49 hours at school or extracurricular activities in one week. The US government has decided that the work week is to be 40 hours. When you factor in athletic practices, this jumps to almost 60 hours. When you factor in an after school job, it the time unavailable for leisure reaches as much as 75 hours in homecoming week, a week that is supposed to be a break from the grind of high school life.