Even with COVID-19 restrictions, the Student Council this year worked to provide students with some normalcy again by returning the homecoming dance. This year’s dance was hosted outdoors in the school’s central courtyard and took place on Sept. 27, during Homecoming week.

Student Council has been meeting weekly to plan events at the school, even with the virus still in the air. Some Homecoming events like the football game, powderpuff, and the carnival have returned the same, but the dance looked slightly different this year.

Something that completely changed this year was the location. Due to the virus, the district had asked that this years’ dance would not be held indoors, so they had to settle for outdoors in the school’s central courtyard.

“It’s kind of weird wide open, that was our biggest restriction, so we weren’t doing social distancing or anything like that, but we were having it outside at least,” Dusty Dennis, the student council advisor, said.

Most of the 2021 student council team had never planned a school dance before, especially during a pandemic. So this brand-new group came up with brilliant ideas to not only have a fun and engaging dance but also comply with all of the restrictions they were given.

“This group had never run it, we were all new. So we’re kind of experimenting, so it’ll be an interesting thing,” Dennis added.

When asked about what stayed the same, Brynn Savelkoul, a senior student council member, said, “We tried to keep ticket prices very cheap. We also rented all of the DJ equipment and let the students run the music. It truly was a fun time, especially since we haven’t had one in so long, homecoming is an event you’ll remember for many years, so we tried to make it memorable.”

This year’s dance included a photography booth, a student-run music queue, complimentary beverages, and a police officer on duty, which helped students make good choices while still having fun. The doors opened at 7 p.m.. and closed at 10:30 p.m.

“I felt protected from COVID because they set it up nicely so that if you were scared of COVID you could socially distance yourself but if you weren’t scared you could still be close to people and have fun.” sophomore Mcall Motz said.

The dance this year ended up with the largest turnout in over 15 years, with over 1,000 tickets sold. This is just the beginning of fun and safe events that the student council is planning this year. This group’s next focus is on freshman elections, blast week, and the snoball dance this winter.