Students, faculty join to boost school spirit

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By Derek Liebig

Granville Central School pride was alive and well, at least for one night, as students, faculty and community members came together Friday to bolster school spirit.

More than 200 students, a couple dozen faculty members and a hundred or so community members packed the high school gymnasium for the inaugural Spirit Night, organized by students and faculty.

“The hope is to increase school spirit, bring people together and make people proud to be from Granville,” said Michelle Bromley, a social studies teacher. “We’re hoping this is something that will be held for years to come.”

Students and faculty participated in games and performed choreographed dances for spectators.

Bromley said the event was based on a “sports night” held annually at her high school alma mater outside Philadelphia.

“It’s been held for 60 years as a way to bolster school spirit and it’s evolved into a huge event,” Bromley said. “We talked about ways we could adopt the event here since there have been some concerns with student apathy.”

The district has been trying to foster greater student involvement amid concerns that a declining number of students are participating in athletics and other extracurricular programs offered at the school.

Officials have met with students in an effort to get to the root of the problem and the event was viewed as to generate interest in extracurricular activities.

A number of activities were held in the month leading up to the event, including a poetry slam contest and a T-shirt design contest. Granville Elementary School is following suit with their own “spirit week” March 9-13.

For Friday’s event, students were divided into two teams—blue and gold—and were pitted against each other in a number of friendly competitions.

“Everyone was excited about it. There’s been a little back and forth,” Hank Brill, captain of the blue team said.

The competition began with scooter races as both teams vied to be the first to have their members race to half court and back. The gold team, which won the competition, then easily dispatched the teachers.

The blue team then performed a choreographed dance routine before the teams competed in chariot races, a relay in which two team members pulled a third teammate seated on a blanket.

After the gold team performed its dance routine, the teams competed in several rounds of Tug of War, dizzy bat and a variation of dodge ball.

It was then the teachers’ turn to perform their dance routine, which began the theme song to “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and even included songs from Eminem.

Throughout the evening there was plenty of playful banter between the two teams and while the gold team won by a final tally of 8-3, both teams displayed their school spirit, coming together on the gymnasium floor and chanting, “Granville.”