The prep for Homecoming Week that most of us remember is probably making cardstock and glitter decorations, renting a helium tank to fill about a thousand balloons, and doing that thing with scissors and thumb to curl a mile of plastic ribbon. School Pride week was mostly skits making fun of the town upriver and contests between the seniors and junior involving who could duct-tape a freshman to the wall the fastest.
Those days sure seem to be gone.
Broken Arrow High School has, for the second year in a row, pumped the volume on their school pride up to eleven, making an eleven-minute long video of their students dancing and lip-syncing to a medley of this year’s popular music.
Two staff members, Spencer VanDolah and Jason Jedamski, organized the whole affair to ‘promote positive spirit’ at Broken Arrow. They say it’s paid off well, that attendance at events is at a record high.
Gliding from clip to clip, the video features members of most of the school’s sports teams and a few clubs singing along to Kanye, Adele, Rachel Platten, and about two dozen more. Many if not all of the school’s 4600 students make at least a crowd appearance, especially in the ending number, “We’re All in This Together,” from, appropriately enough, High School Musical. Even the district’s principals make a singing, dancing appearance, doing The Whip.
Broken Arrow is a district with the resources to do a professional job of this, made clear by the opening footage, shot by drone camera flying over the massive, modern campus with its student union and roofed football field. But it’s good to imagine it inspiring a legion of imitators. The real force behind this is student passion, and any school can have that.
