While students in costumes of all forms lined around the perimeter of the gym, a hush fell over the crowd as Principal Melissa Barlow prepared to announce the winners of the annual costume contest. The contest took a one-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic and severe ice storm, and the extended break led to many unique costumes. Students and faculty alike wore costumes that included movie characters, celebrities and athletes.
The winning costume for the student edition of the contest was an outfit that modeled the late singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. The outfit was worn by senior Jackson Wolf, and as Wolf explains, the outfit was planned out in less than a day.
“This was last minute like I planned this out yesterday,” Wolf said. “I told my Mom I needed a costume, and she asked what I wanted to be. I immediately thought of the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, and we made it happen.”
Unlike Wolf, some faculty members had their outfits planned out weeks in advance. Biology teacher Danielle Stewart dressed as the popular fictional science teacher Mrs. Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus” TV series, and she says the outfit was a part of a bigger plan.
“It was a very, very intricate plan for the costume. My whole classroom door design went with it and everything,” Stewart said.
Stewart says she dressed as Mrs. Frizzle due to her being the reason which she fell in love with science.
“She’s my hero and I want to be a teacher just like her,” Stewart said. “She taught me science and how to love science, so that’s what I want to do to my students.”
While most students and faculty members had a costume that was based on a celebrity or character, some students had costumes that were not trying to imitate anyone in particular.
Sophomore Ethan Blue-Frick finished second place in the contest, and his costume, a regular old man, was not modeled after anybody.
“It is simply an old man,” Blue-Frick said. “I opened my closet and I saw the mask sitting on the floor, and I decided that was my costume.”
Even for students that didn’t win an award, simply the contest making a return had some students excited. Senior Eli George wore a Greaser costume and wanted this to be an event he remembered.
“I missed having the costume contest last year, so I decided to dress up for this one since it would be my last one, and I want to make the most out of my senior year,” George said.