Spirit week is fast approaching as the four grades prepare  to contend for first place in the class competition.

Each class randomly selected two musical genres and a geographic location at a school meeting as the themes for their events. Along with the traditional events and dress up days that will take place, one key change has been made this year in regards to the regatta.

Pool noodles will replace duct tape this year as the material of choice for constructing the boats. Student Council has decided that the copious amounts of duct tape used in previous years were a waste of resources. With that in mind, different grades are adapting to the challenge differently.

Freshmen

Freshmen, who picked their dance themes last, are drawing on Oldies, Disco, and Australian traditions for choreography inspiration.

“Our theme lends itself to a very cohesive dance,” said freshman vice president Eddie Shiang, who is organizing the routine. “The freshman class is looking forward to spirit week because it’s a great opportunity for us to showcase our dance skills.”

After the regatta material change, the  freshmen have decided to use zip-ties to secure the pool noodles to each other.

“We’re trying to use less building materials and more reusable items for construction,” said freshman spirit coordinator Haley Tran. “[This] will allow us to create a better model for future boats and let us better utilize resources.”

She continued to say that although winning would be nice, it’s not the objective.

“I’m just hoping my class feels united and enthusiastic for the coming week,” she said.

Sophmores

The 10th grade dance, which is being choreographed by class president Michael Zhao and Helena Dworak, draws on Disney and Indie styles of music, as well as the heritage of Russia. The sophomores are planning on having their first practice over spring break.

Edward Sheu, sophomore spirit coordinator, is excited about how reusable materials might make boat building easier in later years.

“Hopefully, the noodles will be passed down from class to class so that nothing is wasted,” he said.

As of Monday, the sophomores have not started work on their regatta. Still, Edward is confident that their enthusiasm is uncurbed. “We’ve got a lot planned and currently in the works, and I think we’re going to impress and do some work in this class competition.”

Juniors

Diana Moss, dean of the junior class, along with other members of the Harker community are glad that for the first time, Spirit Week is addressing environmental concerns.

“This year’s regatta is a move away from the wasteful use of hundreds of dollars of duct tape, that can’t be recycled in any way, so they have gone directly into landfill,” Moss said.

Junior spirit coordinator Aaron Huang  is helping guide his class in its selected themes of Bollywood and Mariachi and geographical location of Africa.

“I feel that the theme this year is very good in that it promotes more diversity at Harker, and opens our eyes to all the different cultures we have here as well as those that we don’t,” Aaron said. “On one hand, the genres are pretty specific, and it is relatively easy to come up with dances, but on the other hand, their cultural specificity makes it a little restrictive in terms of the dance and creativity.”

Seniors

The senior class is tasked with the challenge of effectively incorporating its chosen themes of tribal, jazz, and Mexico.

“I like the ability to combine two different themes–geographical location and music genre- – to make some sort of creative mashup. I think our class can adapt to whatever comes our way,” said senior spirit coordinator Kenny Zhang.

As of Monday, the senior class plans to use rope and pool noodles to construct their boat.

“I personally liked the original duct tape regatta, but I understand that it wasn’t the most environmentally-friendly of spirit events,” Kenny said. “I still like the fact that we were able to keep the regatta, but just using different materials.”

Spirit Week is the week after spring break, and students are expected to support their class by dressing up and participating in the events that occur all through the week, including the dances, skit, powderpuff game, and regatta.

Gallery • 5 Photos

Meilan Steimle

Haley Tran (9) lifts up the freshmen class's raft. Spirit week starts April 14; events include dress-up days and daily class competitions.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on April 4, 2014