Homecoming Week began with the royalty nominees accepting their sashes during pepfest on Friday, September 15. The court included seniors Ava Bremer, Erin Boorsma, Jaylee Waters, Ayanna Stout, Rachel Doppelhammer, Henry Buendorf, Jack Skinness, Diego Balbuena Vidal, Erik Stieler and Blaine Bakken. A week later, Ava Bremer and Diego Balbuena were crowned king and queen of Homecoming at the coronation ceremony in the auditorium. Juniors and seniors were invited to attend in person while everyone else watched it on a livestream in classrooms.
Bremer was escorted by David Lee, and after visiting all the elementary schools said, “My heart was touched. It was such a sentimental moment for me. I was very grateful to know that people may look up to me. I’m very grateful to the school. Seeing the elementary schools was very bittersweet, I remember back to when I was that age, I would’ve just looked up to someone like that. Now that we’re older now, it all just hit me last week.”
Balbuena was escorted by Hatty Adams, and didn’t know how the voting would turn out. “There were pretty good people up there,” said Balbuena. “I thought it was going to be pretty even between all of us.”
Monday morning students and staff were greeted by toilet paper and spray paint covering the trees. The school was a combination of cheese slices, raw eggs, and a mixture of vaseline and glitter on door handles and windows. The senior class spent Monday’s flex in the auditorium making choices between confessing and cleaning up their mess or canceling some of Homecoming Week.
“We just need to figure out a way that we can bond together without causing physical damage to property,” said Albert Lea High School Principal Chris Dibble.
After the meeting, some seniors stayed after school on Monday to remove toilet paper from the trees and on Tuesday morning others were scrubbing spray paint off the sidewalk. Seniors took responsibility for their actions and worked to repair any damages done to the school. In the end, administration allowed all the Homecoming events to proceed as planned.
To show school spirit, dress up days for the week began with the laziest dress up: Pajama Day. Students showed up in their onesies, bathrobes, and slippers. Tuesday’s dress-up day was Barbie vs Ken, to see which character deserves the Mojo Dojo Casa House more. That day many came in either stylish blue and pink clothes, while others decided to directly reference the movie by dressing up as Ken in his iconic big fur coat and fanny pack.
Senior Erin Boorsma dressed up in Ken’s big fur coat for Barbie vs Ken day. “It was just super fun, it made me feel like it was Halloween,” said Boorsma. “It’s just fun to play a character, and see what other people are wearing.”
Tuesday night Albert Lea hosted four home games and students went to show support to our teams. Volleyball lost to Winona 1-2. Girls soccer lost to John Marshall 1-0 while girls tennis took their first conference win of the season. Cross country boys placed second out of four teams while the girls took third.
Seniors became early birds when the class of ‘24 shared a sunrise early in the morning with donuts and juice at Jim Gustafson Stadium Field Parking Lot on Wednesday. The dress-up day was class color and each grade sported their own color. Eighth-grade was white, freshman was pink, sophomores wore blue, juniors in purple, and staff wore all the colors with tie-dye. Seniors followed tradition with a blackout; many of them painted designs on their black pants and wore their 2024k golden year shirts proudly showing-off their school spirit.
Senior Erik Stieler attended senior sunrise and said, “We gotta make sure to always participate cause you only get one senior year.”
On Thursday’s dress up day we decided to have a throwback into the 2000s. Many took the opportunity to dress in Hannah Montana-inspired clothing. The dress up week concluded with cherry and blue.
After school on Friday the parade began in downtown where sport teams and clubs drove rode on floats decorated with paint and posters showing their homecoming spirit.The parade was led by the ALHS Marching band.
Due to the rainy weather, Powder Puff was postponed, as of printing there is no rescheduled date announced. Inside the gym, the senior boys took on the juniors in the first Homecoming volleyball match. Seniors won 2-1 in the last set 26-24.
Jack Skinness encouraged others to try new things, “Show up. Try it out. It’s fun. Having a full student section is pretty cool too.”
On Saturday night, the Homecoming Semi-Formal dance took place in two locations at ALHS. Seniors, juniors, and sophomores danced the night away in the gym. While the eighth-graders and freshmen were in the Commons.
“It was one of our last senior dances,” said Blaine Bakken. “That we can never do again.”