In an effort to keep school spirit high and maintain a level of normalcy, Freedom High School’s Student Council Association (SCA) had continued typical traditions for homecoming, including homecoming court. However, the nomination process for choosing this year’s Homecoming King and Homecoming Queen was different than in previous years. In years past, students nominated their peers in a preliminary nomination before voting from a pool of nominees for homecoming royalty. The senior boy and girl who received the most votes became crowned Homecoming King and Queen respectively. This raised the issue of popularity as well as inclusiveness of the LGBTQ+ community into celebrations.
Freedom High School graduates Ava Proehl and Nina Hoyt ran for Homecoming Court together last year but because of the system in place at that time, there was no way for them to both win.
“I was so confused and upset when I found out that we were both on the ballot for queen, because you could only choose one queen and one king, and we couldn’t be crowned together. Even without meaning to, the voting system was perpetuating the discrimination that is so prevalent against the LGBTQ community,” Proehl said.
In an effort to better promote inclusion and celebrate the contributions of members of the senior class, SCA changed the nominating process for the senior class to be done through clubs. Each club nominated 2 individuals who that organization believed best exemplified Freedom’s values. Additionally, every candidate could choose whether they wanted to run for Homecoming King or Homecoming Queen.
“We want to implement this change because we feel that these nominations will be more meaningful and will honor the commitment each student has to Freedom High School,” SCA President Neeharika Yallayi wrote in a letter to club sponsors and officers.
After that, the senior class then voted for the homecoming court from all of the club nominees. Then, the top five king and queen candidates were chosen for homecoming court, and the class again voted for the homecoming king and queen. This year, the Homecoming King was Alex Arriza and Homecoming Queen was Katie Ramboyong.
“I’m really grateful that my peers saw both Alex and I in a way that they thought that we deserved it or that we were the best candidates,” Ramboyong said. “Being in distance learning, it’s not like you can have a lot of impressions on your classmates even if you’re in class with them; you don’t see them in the hallways and you don’t have those interactions with them, so I feel really lucky and really grateful.”
Other traditions that SCA worked to maintain include spirit days and other challenges. For example, the classic hallway decorating contest was replaced with a rock painting contest between the grades as well as class movie contests. Various virtual challenges took the place of pep rally games this year, including trivia between each of the class presidents and a virtual scavenger hunt.
| Freshman Homecoming Court |
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| Sophomore Homecoming Court |
| Marissa Strong |
Matthew Aasen |
Roma Arora |
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| Junior Homecoming Court |
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| Senior Homecoming Court |
| Preetham Madesh |
Chloe Hutchinson |
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| Jackson Smith |
Sharon Sanchez |
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| Nathan Schmitz |
Kaliz Martin |
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| Homecoming King |
Homecoming Queen |
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| Alex Arriza |
Katie Ramboyong |
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