Alison Yang

Sophmores Ryan Miao, Yash Belani and Brandon Labio attempt to stop sliding forwards during their match against the seniors. In a pre-match huddle, they practiced their pulling tempo.

Homecoming Week continues to build momentum for Harker Day as students, dressed in their class colors, marched in the annual spirit parade and competed in tug-of-war preliminaries on Tuesday at 9:35 a.m. 

Each advisory sent one or two representatives, who dressed in costumes and accessories according to their class color — the seniors in white, the juniors in green, the sophomores in yellow, and the frosh in black. When the parade began, a student from each class led their grade by lifting their class’ flag. 

HSLT Community Events Committee member and parade representative Finley Ho (10) helped plan the dress-up days and lunchtime activities for the week.

“I was chosen by one of my fellow advisory members, so I dressed up as a banana,” Finley said. “It was fun to be able to represent my advisory in this tradition, to be able to celebrate with the rest of the people in my grade who were very enthusiastic. I was the flag bearer for my grade, and that was really cool too.”

Gallery • 4 Photos

Alison Yang

Junior Taylor Summers hoists the class mascot "Agoostus" during the Spirit Parade. This year is the Class of 2026's second time advancing to tug of war finals.

Pep band led the procession, followed by the advisory reps, and lastly the rest of the students, who joined the parade one class at a time. Senior Adam Pawlinger, a spectator, highlighted senior Caio Cammer’s Baymax costume.

“The Baymax costume was one of the best parts of the parade,” Adam said. “Caio always goes all out each year for these dress-up days, and it’s really cool to see how spirited we can all get.”

Gathered on the field, the students began tug-of-war preliminaries: the juniors faced the frosh and the seniors faced the sophomores. The juniors and seniors won their respective matches. Thirty students from each grade comprised their team, and junior Oliver Chen reflected on his experience as a member of his class’ tug-of-war lineup.

“I was ecstatic that we won because we worked really hard,” said Oliver. “I was the anchor and we were able to use our body weight to secure the win. To be honest though, I never doubted our victory.” 

Director of Student Organizations Eric Kallbrier organized the event and judged the competition. Tug-of-war senior Kyra Cui celebrated her grade’s victory and anticipated the competition finals during the homecoming game on Saturday.

“I’ve been on this team for three years, so I know what’s going on,” Kyra said. “I’m excited for homecoming and going against the juniors during halftime. Our school is also very spirited this year in general, which is great; I’ve seen some amazing costumes.”

Remaining spirit days are twin dress-up day on Wednesday and class shirt dress-up day on Thursday, when the spirit rally will also take place. 

“I’m really excited for the twin dress-up day because I’m planning to twin with Selena Chen,” Finley said. “We will be wearing our Spiderman T-shirts. As the week continues, people get more into participating with their friends in these activities, which brings the community closer together.”