Photo courtesy of Becca Scherr

This huge turnout of WJ students in their USA spirit at the Whitman football game provides a sense of normalcy. The amount of spirit participation creates hope for the revival of WJ culture.

Following the loss of an entire school year, and almost a half of another, students are returning to school in hopes of re-discovering normality within the building. A key part to a “normal” WJ environment is the infectious school spirit that arises from our school’s culture. From football games to spirit weeks, us Wildcats show our pride through various themes as a collective student body. This type of unity has been forgotten after our time apart. The Leadership class and SGA are on a mission to reinstate school spirit into all of us, hoping to provide the student body with a way to feel connected again.

SGA president, Halle Burns, has very high hopes for the year. She wants to focus her time on making sure spirit is as appealing to everyone as possible and easy to participate in so that involvement can skyrocket.

“We are going to try to make the spirit days more accessible and easier for people to participate in so that we can all feel like a community and people aren’t singled out because they can’t participate,” Burns said.

Although she believes that there is a ton of work she and her team have to do, she was very impressed by how many students showed up at the first football game at Churchill.

“I didn’t realize how excited everyone was going to be to be back and just be jumping around and cheering. That was really nice to see and I am just ecstatic to be continuing that and building off of everything while also keeping safety in mind,” Burns said.

SGA treasurer, Alejandro Linares, strongly believes that the SGA, senior class and remainder of the leadership class have a mindset that isn’t just about ensuring that the seniors have a good final year. They also want to do their best to make this year the best it can be for the entire student body.

“After a long year at home we feel like this is a fresh new start for everyone. It gives us the opportunity to institute new ideals into WJ culture, while also focusing on what we pride ourselves on, spirit,” Linares said.

An important factor in doing so, according to Linares, is getting rid of the divide between the upper and lower classmen.

“We plan on making a new culture of inclusivity and trying to get everyone connected. In the past we realize and recognize that it was very upperclassmen oriented and the lowerclassmen wouldn’t feel as connected. The best way to get rid of this divide is to have all students keep an open mind and become involved in order to create a better WJ,” Linares said.

Leadership teacher Melanie Schwed is not worried about the leadership’s ability to unite the classes and believes they will succeed in bringing more spirit to WJ than ever before.

“It will be easier than people think to be a very spirited school again. I feel like everyone is really interested and everyone wants that really badly. People spent a year by themselves so they really want that group mentality and feeling of belonging,” Schwed said.
Leadership student Julia Beato agrees that leadership’s goal should be about making sure the underclassmen feel comfortable and included when doing the spirits.

“We definitely want to target more of the underclassmen so that in the future when they are upperclassmen they know how important spirit is within WJ culture and they are able to spread that. We are going to create various committees within our leadership class, and there will definitely be one for spirit and events because we want to have people designated to ensure that those things are a priority,” Beato said.

In a time where people are craving normalcy, it is the goal of both the leadership class and the SGA to revamp WJ culture, and it all starts with our school spirit.