Many Manhattan High School students will take to the dance floor once and maybe even twice this week. The Winter Homecoming dance is set for Feb. 13, and a day later, SubDeb happens Feb. 14.
Winter HoCo is put together by freshman and sophomore Student Council, while SubDeb is non-MHS affiliated, a distinction MHS administration strongly emphasizes.
“SubDeb, we take a high rate of calls from parents seeking more information about it,” head principal Michael Dorst said. “And I think for many of our households in our community, they have a sense that this is a school sponsored event, which it is not. It’s not school approved. It’s not school sponsored. It has no association with Manhattan High School.”
Winter HoCo expands to include Friday night activities directly following Varsity basketball.
Winter Homecoming will feature a variety of different activities, including dress-up days, a pep rally, basketball games and crowning, as usual. And this year HoCo includes a dance and game night on Friday, with many options for students to enjoy.
“It’s kind of a choose-your-own-adventure event,” MHS activities director Lisa Julian said. “So, we want people to be comfortable in whatever it is that they choose to do.”
The event will feature Gaga ball and nine-square-in-the-air in the West Gym, laser tag in the South Gym, a movie in the Little Theatre and food and drinks in the cafeteria. The dance floor area will lie on the library side of the Frank Prentup Commons.
“I wasn’t here back when they used to do Winter Homecoming [dances], but it used to be a thing,” Julian said. “And they had a dance here in the Commons, which is why we came up with that particular strategy.”
Having a dance as part of Winter Homecoming festivities is something no current MHS student has experienced, that is until now.
“[We] carried over some practices from when we were two separate campuses, and it was time to kind of think about how we’re going to realign that and really do a one campus thing,” Julian said.
Because of this, two events StuCo held last year — Sophomores Only (SOLY) and Freshman Prom (From) — won’t return.
“Last year was the first [year] for the sophomore event. It wasn’t very well attended,” Julian said. “The freshman dance has been well attended, but it also doesn’t include that opportunity for other grade levels.”
Winter HoCo night will begin directly following the boys varsity basketball game. The event is informal.
“Because it’s a non-formal dance, you’re able to wear any of your favorite Valentine’s Day red,” freshman StuCo president Elle Shamburg said.
Valentines Day is the dance’s theme, along with the theme of the basketball games that precede it.
“Certainly you could dress up if you want to, but you could be going from dancing on the dance floor to playing gaga ball or laser tag to sitting in a sing-along,” Julian said.
SubDeb will take place on Valentines Day at the KSU Alumni Center.
The dance will be from 8:30 pm to 11:30 pm.
“The theme is ‘Take me to Rio,’” SubDeb member Tatum Dall, senior, said. “And we picked it because the last few years we’ve had a lot of pink and orange, and so we wanted it to be like [“Rio” character] Blue’s feathers and more [of] a fun color.”
SubDeb is switching a few things up from previous years.
“We have more food and drinks that people prefer,” SubDeb member Keylee Schartz, senior, said. “We have playlists with recommendations from people, so then we can make sure we have the right music. I think SubDeb this year, everybody will enjoy.”
Proceeds from the event go to a charity of the SubDeb committee’s choice.
“SubDeb is always my favorite dance, and I think a lot of people would agree,” Schartz said.
