On October 19th, 2024, Friends Upper School students attended their homecoming dance. Walking into the dance, students filled the stairway leading up to the Dining Hall. They were all anxiously waiting to get inside and see the decorations, snacks, and energy of the room.
At the top of the steps sat a line of teachers, vigilantly checking people in. Behind their table, the dance awaited. Colored lights from the room bled through the closed glass doors and onto the students waiting outside.
Once the teachers stamped their hands, students were finally allowed in! The mosh pit collected near the front of the room, and people thinned out towards the back where the snack table was. Some students danced while others sat and ate snacks in the booths.
Each fall, the school holds a Homecoming dance planned by the student Senate. The dance is extra special to students because it concludes an exciting day called Scarlet and Gray Day, which features numerous sports matchups and family activities. All four grades of the Upper School are invited.
“I had a lot of fun, actually. Really, yeah,” said Travis Henschen, Upper School Dean of Student Life and senate advisor. “The highlight was Morgan and Jacob doing the streamers on the pillars.”
Varying shades of blue decorated the room, transforming the Dining Hall into the scene of an ocean shipwreck. Jellyfish appeared to swim up the pillars, the table cloths were treasure maps, and chests with gold coins and pirate ship backdrops hung on the walls. Some students were dressed to match the theme, while others were bold enough to wear full ocean-concept costumes.
The theme was not the only flashy aspect of the night. The music was roaring and energetic. At the front of the Dining Hall, DJ OK stood at a table decked out in DJ gear. Flanking his table were two giant speakers that resounded through the whole room.
The school hires a DJ every year for the Homecoming dance. DJ OK was back by popular demand this year. But students’ reaction to this year’s playlist was mixed, even though it was student-selected.
“He’s saving the good songs for later,” sophomore senator Rhys Brown declared with hope, early in the evening. Rhys had helped to choose DJ OK, due to his popularity in previous years.
Junior and senator Morgan Thomasson-Small said what makes a good DJ, and a good dance, isn’t all about the music anyhow.
“I feel like it’s not even the music he plays. It’s the energy that he brings. It’s the person, it’s the personality,” she said. “Plus his tracks are good and he listens to requests, and that’s all I care about.”
Lucy Langrall, a freshman student who recently switched to using they/them pronouns, had a different focus at the dance. At dances at their old school, they say, they wore clothes that were “more feminine,” and didn’t fit as well with how they feel now. So before Homecoming, they went shopping.
“I wanted to look for a more masculine outfit for it, but still follow the theme,” said Lucy, “so it was really fun to look into that more and try and experiment with that sense of fashion that I haven’t actually used before.“
Junior Nora Ryscavage also enjoyed the dance, for another reason.
“I really think that what makes Homecoming so fun is that you get to spend time with your friends,” she said.
In the end, the dance provided an uplifting experience for the students of Friends School.
