HIT: SEC: Pep assemblies

[Vicki Sherouse <sherouse@MARSWEB.COM>]

Sorry for the delay in posting this.

I am the student council sponsor and although I am not the lead sponsor for
pep rallies I can tell you a little bit about our pep rallies.  We are a
student body of 1300, but the gym holds about 500, so we can't have everyone
in the building at the pep rallies

First of all we are a 2 year high school, which is death to school spirit
because we feed into the senior high and the sophomores start moving on
mentally around this time of year.  So we have to work big time to get
people enthusiastic at all.

We start school at 9:15 so our pep rallies are before school, starting at
around 8:15 to 8:30 and run for 40 to 50 minutes.

We always have the band. If the band can't participate we don't have a pep
rally. Someone or group from choir sings the Star Spangled Banner.  JROTC
presents the colors.  We try and involve as many different "groups" as we
can--not just student council and cheerleaders.

The Student council provides the MC.  Someone that can handle the
crowd--someone popular.  The MC this year was a cute girl that would dress
up in spirit wear.....She took a purple T-shirt (our colors are purple and
white) painted spirit slogans on it, wore white tights, purple and white
socks, painted her face....just went nuts dressing the part.

We have music playing starting around 7:30 when we are setting up ---loud
music that makes everyone peppy.

Dance/drill team dances.
Student Council does a skit. This year we put a pie in the face of the
football coach, had a vote and had two teachers "Kiss a Pig",
    Had a Spirit wear contest and the winner had their picture in the town
newspaper.  Music is always playing.  We've used         snippets from
anything to make a skit work. We rented a horse costume once--we were
playing the stallions.
The mascot does a skit
Freshman cheerleaders do a cheer stunt
Sophomore cheerleaders do a cheer stunt
They cheer all together
We try and do at least one chant--getting the crowd to participate. Our kids
just sit and look on...so we place student council members around in the
crowd to stand for the school fight song, and to scream for the chant.  That
helps.

The coaches have something to say.  The different teams stand/or sit
together dressed out in their game day clothes usually. We introduce the
kids at the first pep rally where they attend as a team.  We play
football/volleyball in the fall.  Girls/boys basketball, wrestling, soccer
this time of year. Sometimes we have a student that wants to do a spirit
talk.

Fight song is played at the beginning.maybe once in the middle...and then at
the end...going into the alma mater.

We usually have a theme--like Fire up!  The cheer sponsor tells me there are
lots of cheer web sites with ideas for skits and themes.

We make lots of banners for the gym and then take them to the game. We also
gave away little candies to the student body if they had purple on at the
end of the pep rally.   The Cheerleaders handed it out.

To make a long story short, it is difficult to change the student body, but
we worked hard on it this year, and I think made some strides.  Working
through a group like student council we were able to teach them how to act
at the meetings, then expecting them to carry it over to the student body.

Hope this helps, and I hope I didn't ramble.  Spirit is hard to get going
any more and we haven't figured out why.

Susan Meyer, Librarian
Vines High School
Plano ISD
Plano, Texas
smeyer@pisd.edu



> This will be rather lengthy as I am the mother of a mascot in Texas who
> loves their sports and pep rallies.  Our cheerleader sponsor goes out more
> and more each year.  If you read about Homecoming on a hit earlier, we are
> the school who has skydivers bring in the game ball.  Also, 20th Century
Fox
> voted our pep rallies the best in the nation - whatever that means. Our
> school is extremely diversified so we try to include many different
groups.
>
> Each pep rally consists of some portion of the drill team dances, the
> cheerleaders dance and cheer, the mascot does a skit, we have tumble time
> whereas anyone who tumbles can do this across the gym floor again and
again
> until the music stops - we have football players, wrestlers, swim team,
> cheerleaders, drill team members, regular students, etc. do this.  Of
> course, we have the fight song and speeches by the head coach and senior
> players.  Usually a group of teachers will dance or do a skit.  We have
> completion on noise from each grade level - whereas the winning grade gets
> to keep the spirit stick until the next pep rally. (Last year we had a
> tug-of-war between different groups of the school - each week a total of
> three groups sent their best 8 members to complete.  Two groups competed,
> the winner challenged another group, the winner competed the next week.
> Choir, athletes, band, etc. all completed.)  We end singing our alma
mater.
>
> Since our pep rallies have been thematic, they have become  much more fun!
> Let me preface this by stating that we have a new head football coach and
> 4-5 new other coaches plus an extremely enthusiastic basketball coach.
This
> helps!  At the first pep rally this year, we solicited the help of a man
in
> the area who owns a small tractor which pulls barrels cut out to look like
a
> train.  He drove the coaches into the pep rally to a current song "Train".
> This may have been a western theme day but  I cannot remember much about
> this one except for the coaches.
>
> Another one we did to Michael Jackson 80's music.  The coaches dressed up
as
> monsters, were put into standing movable boxes by the drill team who were
> dressed like the thriller video.  The coaches emerged as transformed into
> themselves.  The drill team performed to Thriller - recreating the video.
> The senior parents danced to "I'm Bad" as this was the senior pep rally.
> Oscar, the mascot, challenged an opposing team rep by playing and winning
a
> game of Twister.  And, a winning student got to throw a pie into a
teacher's
> face.  This was the last pep rally of the football season and Oscar had
the
> spirit stick stolen from the junior office and did a "Mission Impossible"
> theme and espionage using it.
>
> We did a salsa/Ricky Martin theme.  This was fun.  After the drill team
> danced to Ricky Martin, they joined the cheerleaders and some teachers to
> form a conga line and at the end were the coaches wearing the ruffle
shirts
> who danced in a circle with everyone who had been in the conga line.  We
had
> a limbo contest from representatives who had been picked earlier.  Oscar,
(a
> purple furry eagle) did a skit wearing a zorro cape and carrying a sword
to
> fight off the evil opposer who tried to steal his girl.  When we thought
> Oscar was defeated, the music changed to 2001 and a Star Wars sword
emerged
> and, of course, Oscar was the winner and walked away with the maiden.
>
> During Octoberfest, the coaches rode bicycles in wearing leather and the
> head coach arrived on a Harley Davidson - this theme was Babes and Bikers.
> The German club had sponsored a contest called "Chug-a-Roo" and had a
> contest during the week which culminated at the pep rally - the winner
> received a $100.  They chugged Root Beer in honor of Octoberfest.  We also
> had several male teachers compete in a dance contest - some are goofy and
> others the moms love to watch - built, good-looking, etc.  Each time the
> drill team and band prepares a dance and music for the theme.  I think our
> stomp team danced at this one too.
>
> I know we did swing dancing at one which may have been "At the Movies".
We
> borrowed a different tux for each coach and presented them on "red" carpet
> as if going to the Oscars.  Each appeared on the arm of a drill team
member
> dressed in a formal and was presented as the director/producer, etc.  Of
> course, all music, etc. was based on the movies and I think we did swing
> dancing at this one.  Boy, I need to go and look at the videos!
>
> Our basketball coaches were driven in by a surrey from Cadillac which is
> pedal driven.  The stomp team performed here as well.  I think you get the
> long and general idea.  I can get a schedule if you want of exactly how
all
> this goes together.  We have more participation than we used to.  Also,
many
> school board members and superintendents do come to our pep rallies as
well
> as community leaders and teachers from other schools.  We have a large
> parent/community section at each pep rally.  It is great fun!
>
> We also do tailgate parties prior to each home football game which is a
> fundraiser for different groups at school.
>
> Sorry this is disjointed and my brain is not working well at the moment.
If
> you want more information, I can get it for you.
>
> Lynette Morgan, LMS
> Arapaho Elementary School
> Richardson ISD
> 1300 Cypress
> Richardson, Texas 75080
> 972-470-5228\

> First of all, we have drastically cut the number of the events! We now
have
> about 3 per season unless we make it to championships. We occasionally
have
> our advisee groups participate in some sort of spirit competition and
> announce winners then. WE have collected cans of food, made spirits
chains,
> decorated doors and made banners, had poem, cheer and/or song contests.
The
> drama class often performs skits. We limit ours to 20 minutes, too, and
send
> those students who have no interest to the cafeteria where some teachers
> watch them. At least that way we have a more enthusiastic crowd. My sister
> (teacher and x-cheerleader sponsor) has led the rallies for nearly 20
years.
> Each freshman advisee groups go to the gym at the start of the year where
> the learn the school song, some cheers, and the general routine of pep
> rallies, too.
> >

, but it is my 20th year in education with 17 of those years in
> HS.  Have a male with a great announcing voice emcee the pep rally.  The
> best pep rallies were at the last school which had a school spirit
> problem until a new principal started announcing and he really missed
> his calling as a professional announcer.  He had spirit competitions
> between classes and the "gigolo" with each class putting their "hands up
> high, feet down low and that's the way we gigolo."  Hard to explain in
> an e-mail. Did the Macarena.   The best pep rallies ever!  Not boring.
> There were no lulls between one activity and the next.  Everyone knew
> what was on the agenda and moved to the next activity.  It was so
> crowded because the kids (2900 plus) could not all fit in the gym so
> only students wearing school colors could attend.  I had classes where
> everyone had their colors on and attended.  The Sr. and Jr. classes
> started wearing  a class shirt and headwear.  Only part of the band
> played, but the drums were definitely represented.  There was also a
> competition with a male and female representative from each class and
> the faculty.  Did things like have male dressed in football uniform to
> start with and he must remove uniform and help the female dress in it;
> stand a bat up, put forehead on it and circle the bat 3 times with hands
> behind back, then run to other class rep at the other end of gym, tag
> and 2nd person circles bat and runs to other end of gym.
>
> Vandalism of school property dropped noticeably!!!  Even kids not




> engaged in school actually attended and no one left early.

Leadership magazine has a good article on this.September of 1999.


Vicki Sherouse, Librarian
Sentinel High School
Missoula, Montana
sherouse@marsweb.com

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