Mrs. Stacy Beaulieu has been the adviser for Triton’s Spirit week since 2017 and has seen a number of changes in the format of the week.
“The most recent change the name change took away homecoming and called it spirit week cuz it’s more about Spirit of the classes then a football game and kids coming home”
The origins of spirit week date back to 1927 in Palo Alto school in California In the article “The history of spirit week ” by Lucy Johnson of the Mycenaean. It goes through and explains the origins of spirit week where there was a popular event called the Girls’ Jinx where women, and later men would dress up and put on performances.
Later on in the 1950’s it became known as Friendship week, its purpose was to bring peers closer together. Then in the late 1970’s it became known as homecoming. Where students play games, dress the same, and dance. It is much the same as spirit week is today simply under a different name. Triton also celebrates spirit week now formerly known as home coming.
Spirit week is as much as the students make it. If they are engaged and willing to participate they might find it quite fun. It is a way for students to engage with their school and show their school spirit. It also spices up students’ lives and makes coming to school more interesting and fun.
Tritons spirit week has changed more than just the name of the event.
“If you were to go interview other alumni like Miss P and the guidance she would tell you that what they did during homecoming back then slash spirit week is different than now” Said Beaulieu
“She graduated somewhere in the eighties and I graduated in the 90’s and it was way different. Just in my four years in high school we changed from what we decorated where we decorated to what used to be hallways and then it was just parts of the lobby.”
“Then in the early 2000’s we used to decorate the gym and the cafeteria and they did skits and they played games we added the games that was due to the fact that we were too big to all fit in the auditorium believe it or not we were three times bigger school back then so it’s changed a ton.”
When asked about his pie in the face strategy Mr. Allen responded “My initial strategy was to make a bunch of posters put them around the school make some posters to put on some Google slides to put on the TVs around the school and that hasn’t really worked so I’m sort of stuck right now I’m just going around once in a while to classrooms and asking for money and that has met with limited success.”
Spirit week has been around since Principal Kelley has been in Triton. Showing the long standing of the tradition that is spirit week. When asked about how students can show spirit outside of this week he said.
“I think part of it is about taking pride in our school and taking pride in our campus so I think there are little things that we can do every day just in terms of caring for our classmates, caring for teachers and making sure that our spaces remain cleaned and picked up.”
“I think it’s important that when there are events regardless of what they are people show up whether that’s going to the play going to you know the Esports match that’s coming up in the auditorium going to a sporting event or just participating in class I think those are all ways where we can build community and show that we care about both our school and the people that are in our school ”
Mr. Kelley is looking forward to “Seeing this Pacheco get paid in the face I think she’s going down and then I’m also really looking forward to seeing Aidan Cashman get pied in the face those two I think are are in trouble this is my first year in a while I haven’t been pied or taped to a wall or something.”
Said Kelley “I’m happy just to be able to participate in the unified basketball game and to see the decorations that come every year. I’m kind of blown away with how well the gym is decorated. So I’m looking forward to seeing all of that but it’s just a fun couple of days and I’m looking forward to it.”
