On Friday, November 1st, Ridge’s Student Government held the annual Homecoming assembly. This year’s assembly featured performances from the Honor Choir, cheer, pom, and band. Friday was also the end of spirit week and was marked by the traditional class color day for when students sit in their grade level sections at the assembly.
The assembly began with the Honor Choir’s rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. Directed by Abel Dragomir, the choir sang flawlessly and earned a roar of approval from the students. The choir began preparing for their performance about two weeks before the event. Junior Celia Goh, a member of the Honor Choir, says the most difficult part about singing in the assembly is, “to not get distracted by all the students,” and to, “focus on the task at hand.” Goh also recalls her favorite moment, when they began to harmonize. She says she “enjoyed seeing the shocked faces!”
Following the choir were performances by JV cheer, varsity cheer, pom, and the performance dance class. The routines were stunning and each member was in sync with one another. The varsity cheer team performed their competition routine, which they had been working on for about a month and a half. They competed this routine just last Saturday and placed 4th. Marissa Rogers, a junior on the varsity cheer team, reflects on the difficulties of stunting during the routine. Rogers believes this is the hardest part because “there’s so many things that could go wrong and normally causes a domino effect.” However, stunting can also be Roger’s favorite part because of, “the feeling afterwards when you know everything actually hit and the energy is hype.”
There were also two student competitions this year. The first was for representatives of the fall sports and the second was a competition between classes. The fall sports athletes played a game where one person had to throw an inflatable inner tube across a short distance to their partner who must catch it with their arms or body. Owen Docktor, a senior in cross country, helped his team take home the win in the second assembly. Docktor achieved his goal of getting “100% accuracy,” when throwing the tubes and describes the win as “super amazing.” Docktor feels he has fulfilled his, “dream to be a human ring toss champion.” The second competition between classes featured a race using inflatable mattresses that were pushed forward by each of the members diving onto them.
The band, directed by Jeffery Malone, finished off the performances by playing a few sections from their show. The reigning state champions have so far had high rankings in Arizona and will compete at the state competition in two weeks.
Finally, each of the classes competed in the spirit scream where each grade level has to make as much noise as possible in order to win the spirit stick.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the members of the Student Government who plan the assemblies each year. Remi McKim, a senior representative in StuGo, says her favorite moment of working on the assemblies is when she gets to explain the competitions to the students who are participating in them. She describes how, “you can clearly mark the moment their face drops or lights up, since all competitions involve an aspect of getting out of your comfort zone.”
This year’s assembly provided the perfect ending to a fun spirit week and set the stage for an entertaining dance.
