Over the years, the purpose of Homecoming court has changed. Is it based on popularity or is it all a joke? During Homecoming Court, a king and queen from each grade is rewarded with a sash and the senior winners are given crowns. But is this really what it’s all about?
SGA sponsor and leadership teacher, Rainer Kulenkampff, helped manage the leadership class as they worked to put together this year’s Homecoming court.
“[This year], underclassmen nominations [were] done online in social studies classrooms, [while] upperclassmen [did] nominations in English class online, then the final three couples [were] voted on again to determine the winner,” Kulenkampff said.
This year, four leadership students ran the Homecoming court nominations and crowning event at the Homecoming football game, which took place the night before the Homecoming dance. Senior Nico Ballon, helped to improve the method and voting percentage for nominations of this year’s Homecoming court. In previous years, all voting for Homecoming court occurred by hand, but this change made the process even faster.
“[It has been easier to vote this year because] before, voting used to all be done on paper because we didn’t have access to Chromebooks and it would take too long to get classes to the computer labs,” Ballon said.
Sophomore Amanda Krupinski was given the opportunity to use this year’s new voting tactic via chrome book, and she found it to be beneficial.
“I think [nominating through Chromebooks] is a good way to vote because it gives everyone a choice to vote for whomever they want, and it’s also anonymous,” Krupinski said.
Extending on the idea of creating a system of anonymous voting, overtime, the idea of ‘Homecoming court’ has changed greatly. Now, people tend to vote for students who are in relationships, as well as their friends, possibly as a joke.
From Kulenkampff’s perspective, students are nominated based on their level of school spirit.
“It depends on the class, [but] since Homecoming is all about school spirit, the students elected to the court are usually pretty involved in school activities,” Kulenkampff said.
Although Kulenkampff’s ideas are relatable to the instance at our school, students may have a different take on what Homecoming court really means.
Ballon agreed with Kullenkampff’s points, but thinks that students see a different purpose.
“I think it’s based partially on popularity, but it’s also partly a joke, except for if there is a cute couple who has been dating for a long time, you could vote for them. It’s not super serious unless there’s a good couple that can win,” Ballon said.
In addition, Krupinski’s idea are parallel to ideas expressed by Ballon.
“I think in a lot of cases, people don’t take it seriously because some people want to joke around with their friends and nominate them, and then pair them with someone as a joke, just to see the outcome,” she said.
Ballon and Krupinski both came to the conclusion that Homecoming court is not extremely important.
“It’s not as of a big tradition as it is at other schools because at some other schools, I’ve heard that the king and queen get more attention at the actual dance rather than the Homecoming football game. But as far as WJ, the big deal of Homecoming court is displayed at the football game,” Ballon said.
It seems that WJ, along with some other schools, whether they take traditions from way back into hand or not, do not take events such as nominations for Homecoming court very seriously.
