The lights go off as the crowd eagerly awaits. The music plays and the NHS Dragonettes dance onstage in glittering costumes. The moment they’ve been preparing for months for has come. Christmas shows are a big tradition at Nacogdoches High School. The show is a performance put on annually by the Dragonettes, the Twirlers, and the Cheerleaders in mid December. It’s an opportunity for each organization involved to showcase their talent and spread Christmas cheer.
“My favorite part of Christmas Show is decorating the foyer with moms and team members before productions,” drill team director Lisa Fuller said.
School traditions are an important part of any school.
They can foster community and connect students and traditions help shape the school’s identity and strengthen spirit. At our school we have current traditions and some amazing traditions we could bring back too.
Kristin Thomas, teacher and alumni, talked about an old tradition that was a fun way for the school to get involved in spirit week. During spirit week each class would get assigned a hallway to decorate for spirit week.
“This tradition would be great to bring back because it gives each class a chance to represent themselves,” Thomas said. “It could be a great way to involve all of the students and unite the upper and underclassmen.”
Football season has its own set of traditions, too. One tradition was when the football team would score a touchdown at football games. A student would drive a truck around the track hauling a trailer with a dragon on it, and the cheerleaders would hop on the trailer and ride around the track.
“I love how the band marches with middle school at the last home game and the twirlers twirl with middle school to Pretty Woman,” Fuller said.
There are many other organizations at our school that have traditions, like the swim team. One of the swim team’s big traditions is the black and gold meet where they split the team into two teams and have them compete against each other in three different events.
“We keep doing the black and gold meet because one, it’s a tradition, two, the swimmers enjoy it and, three, it’s competitive,” head swim coach Carrie Scroggins said. “It also gets the school involved; a lot of our meets are out of town so it gives them a chance to come and watch.”
Although there are some amazing current traditions, the campus could benefit from some new traditions that represent our school and community. We have a diverse school with a variety of cultures that could be represented in our traditions.
“The freshman class is going to sponsor and create their own tradition, a powder puff game,” freshman class sponsor Rebecca Jaramillo said. “It’s important for classes to sponsor traditions so they have the opportunity to be more involved.”
