Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Homecoming week brings wave of excitement to Boulder City High

Boulder City Homecoming

Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Sun

Senior Ryan Washburn puts in some muscle sawing boards for the boat on the senior homecoming float Monday night at Boulder City High School.

Boulder City Homecoming

After a late start, seniors Tim McKeever and Allen Haines, right, get to work drilling the sides of their boat for the senior homecoming float Monday night at Boulder City High School. Launch slideshow »

Homecoming Events

  • Oct. 1 — Parade and bonfire, 6 p.m., parade begins at Broadbent Park, 1301 Fifth St., and ends next to the Fire Station, 1101 Elm St., for the bonfire
  • Oct. 2 — Volleyball game 3 p.m.; football game 7 p.m., Boulder City High, 1101 Fifth St.
  • Oct. 3 — Dance, 7 p.m. Boulder City High gym
  • For more information, call 799-8200 or go to schools.ccsd.net/bouldercity

Boulder City High School students expect some fierce competition Friday when the football and volleyball teams meet homecoming rival Faith Lutheran.

But an equally fierce competition began Monday, when members of the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior classes met in the school’s auto shop to transform plain white trailers into prize-winning homecoming floats.

It was the beginning of one of the school’s busiest and most spirited weeks, members of the student council said.

“All of the kids really get involved,” freshman class President Avalon Frantz said. “When the whole school comes together with school spirit, it kind of kicks off the year a little bit.”

The week began Monday morning with the first of five dress-up days, Jersey Day. It ends Saturday night with an entirely different level of dressing up, for the homecoming dance.

In between will be a parade, bonfire, football and volleyball games and pep rally, all centered around the theme, “Come Sail Away.”

Monday evening, the first day of float-building, plywood vessels began to take shape on the designated trailers — freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors each took a bay of the shop.

Student council members from each class had already come up with their ideas to illustrate the Eagles’ intention to keelhaul Faith Lutheran’s Crusaders.

For the past four years, the Class of 2009 won the float competition, Student Body President Paxton Fleming said. Now that those students have graduated, the field is wide open, and she was ready for her class to take its rightful prize with its “Cruise the Crusaders” theme.

“Last year, we were so mad. Everyone said we should have won,” she said. “I think the teachers voted for the seniors so they could have a four-year legacy.”

Her younger brother, Corbett Fleming, vice president of the freshman class, was aware of the opportunity to make a mark.

“She knows I’m going to take her to the house,” he said of his sister as he spread chicken wire on the freshman class float with its “Castaway” theme.

Rules are in place to discourage creative borrowing among the class projects, Fleming said. Class officers have to share their float themes during student council, and once a theme has been announced, no one else can take it. A stolen idea ends in disqualification, she said.

That’s true, junior class President Alexandra Leach said, adding, “There shouldn’t be stealing, but it happens.”

James Campbell, the school’s dean, said it would be interesting to see how the floats developed in the three days allotted — especially with the inexperienced freshmen.

“It’s usually a big evolution what the freshmen do from Day 1 to Day 3,” he said.

But two hours into the work session, the freshmen were the only class to have chicken wire on the float. The senior float consisted of a white trailer with some 2-by-4 blocks tossed onto it.

“They have yet to have a definitive plan,” student council adviser Canaan Petersen said. “That worries me.”

But he resisted the urge to step in and get them organized.

“As the adviser, I have to say they should have had a plan coming in,” he said. “To stay with the theme, it’s sink or swim, baby. It’s on their shoulders.”

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