When walking into the first day of this school year, students and staff were left with one question: Have we lost our spirit?
In previous years, school spirit felt light and fun for all of us, but when stepping foot into school this year it felt even more bland than the past few years.
Our school plans spirit weeks and assemblies for students to enjoy school spirit. So why Liberty? Why do we not take advantage of it?
These are our last moments of life as kids. So why not enjoy the spirit that is given to us? Is it because of embarrassment? Is it lack of spirit? What is it Liberty?
“I see why people don’t anymore because no one wants to stick out,” Lilly Brown (12) said. “I decided to not care and just dress up for all the spirit days for my senior year.”
The student body is losing its spirit spark and it needs to change.
“I feel like there hasn’t been as much participation in spirit days this year as there has been in the past but I still feel like there’s a good amount of school spirit,” PLTW teacher Jennifer Strathman said.
Years from now you’re going to remember your high school years, whether or not you think you won’t, but you will. What are you going to remember? Showing up to school, sports games, assemblies, school events with no spirit involvement?
Or are you going to remember being involved and spirited as a school?
Have you ever noticed on social media or videos taken from a game of the student section? Students are dressed up and loud. They seem full of spirit right? Or is it just for the post? For the video?
Are we really spirited or is it just an act?
“It’s really sad to see. I think dressing up for spirit days and going to events is just a part of high school,” Brown said.
Brown was claimed Spirit Queen back in her sophomore year and was reclaimed again this year for showing the most spirit in school. She is one of of the few students and staff in the entire school who dress up for just about every single spirit related event or day.
“When my brother went here, he always dressed up and went all out so I took inspiration from him,” Brown said.
Alumni Carson Brown came to Liberty in 2015, two years after it had opened. School spirit was lacking at the time, but it soon came to a change his junior year.
Brown became a successful student section leader back in his junior year in 2017 and was student section leader again in 2018 for his senior year. He was known for not only being very involved and spirited himself, but also getting the student body as well.
He and a few other StuCo students started getting creative ideas to bring the student body together to be as involved as possible. They used apps like TikTok to get their inspiration from other schools around the country as well as Twitter to interact with students and other schools.
“We ran a Twitter account that I believe is still around called ‘The Nest,’ where we directly interacted with students from Liberty and rival high schools. Myself and the other StuCo folks would always take the theme to the absolute extreme so that students wouldn’t feel like they stood out by participating,” Brown said.
Although it was still hard to convince everyone to get involved and show up, the effort was shown.
“The key is to just do things without asking the crowd for approval first,” Brown said. “When you’re in high school, you stress a lot about whether or not the people around you will find the things you do funny or intriguing, or whatever, when in reality you should just trust your instincts.”
So Liberty, what’s your pick?
Do you want to continue being a school who isn’t full of spirit? Or do you want to be the most spirited school in town?
Your choice.
