Recently, students competed to see who the most spirited Panthers on campus were. In honor of homecoming spirit week, students from any grade were able to dress up for each spirit day. Then at the end of the week, votes were tallied up and two students from each grade were named student spirit ambassadors.
Across social media, students promoted their outfits. Kaya Avery, a junior spirit ambassador, strategized specific fashion and social media choices to secure the win.
“Having the most accessories and being the most dressed up was my strategy,” Avery said. “When I went to take pictures thought about the location, and I also choose fun and cool backgrounds that related to the theme,”
Planning posts were navigated differently for each student that was running. The other elected spirit ambassador, junior Finn McMahan, did not agree with editing when it came to posting.
“A lot of people like to use editing in their backgrounds for their social media, but I prefer not to do it. That’s why I brought a boogie board and went to the pool so that my photos would be all real stuff and not edited,” McMahan said.
Aside from wearing good outfits and making good instagram posts, campaigning was equally important.
“I told people in my classes to vote for me. I made announcements in front of my classes and told people I know in the hallways,” Avery said.
Coming up with original ideas for each theme was challenging.These students got creative for each day’s theme, but admit some days were harder than others.
“I was most nervous for pajama day because it was the hardest day to dress up for. Also not being at school made me more nervous that it was going to be harder to show spirit,” McMahan said.
Fortunately, one bad day didn’t ruin the whole week for McMahan. He thinks that his decades day and class colors outfit on Thursday and Friday made up for Wednesday.
“I think my best outfit was either Thursday or Friday because on Thursday I had a bald cap on. On Friday I was painted all red, so it just helped me stand out,” McMahan said.
Not just anybody can run for this position. It takes a lot of courage and confidence to walk to halls in an attention-grabbing outfit.
“I got looks and people laughed, but it’s all fun, so I got used to it,” McMahan said.
The efforts of these two juniors paid off. They both were equally motivated with positive intentions.
“My motivation for running was to win, because last year I ran for spirit ambassador and didn’t win,” Avery said
“I won it last year and so I wanted to run again this year. It’s also just something fun to do to help get more involved,” McMahan said.
Winning is a great feeling after a long week of straight crazy outfits. Congratulations to McMahan and Avery.
“I feel great. I went against a lot of really tough competitors and beat them,” Avery said.
