Homecoming Dance: Friday or Saturday? -By Alex

As most of you know, the Homecoming dance of the 2009-2010 school year was on Saturday night, rather than Friday night. At Harlan High School, all the Homecoming festivities have always been on Friday. The day would start off with the coronation ceremony at 1:30, followed by the parade around the historic Square of downtown Harlan, and after the parade was completed, there was a small pep assembly on the steps of the Courthouse. At 7:30 that night, the Cyclone harriers would play an enticing game against their opponents, and ever since I can remember, the Cyclones have always won. At about halftime of the football game, the high school girls would scramble off to primp, polish, and scurry to be looking fantastic as their dates arrive. In the mean time, when the game would end, the football boys would rapidly shower, and get all fancied up to go meet their girls and have their pictures taken.


Now you may ask, “What’s the problem with this? It all seems to run so smoothly!” But the problem is that no one arrives at the dance until around 10:00 or 10:30, at the earliest. Now I don’t know about you, but that seems kind of late to me, especially because of the fact that the dance ends at midnight. Because of this, the Harlan High School Student Council took it among themselves to take a vote of the student body and see if students thought we should move the dance to Saturday night, with everything else remaining on Friday. The result of the vote was to have the dance Saturday, so that’s what went down.

The dance was most definitely a success! Everyone I talked to absolutely loved the music and had a BLAST dancing. Even people who don’t like to dance said that they had fun boogying on the dance floor. I didn’t even hear anyone complain about the breathalizing, which was put into effect last year. Student Council benefited from the dance as well, profiting $1645. All in all, everyone had a great night!


Many people had many different opinions on the dance on Saturday. To tell you the truth, I think both Friday and Saturday night have their pros and cons. Among the people I interviewed, one night didn’t seem to rule over the other night; both options seemed pretty even. Below are numerous quotes from different members of the HCHS student body about the dance. The question asked was, “Did you like the dance better on Friday night or Saturday night?” Here were the responses:


Amy Clark, junior, said, “It was alright on Saturday. I liked it better on Saturday because you have more time to get ready and you don’t have to leave in the middle of the game to be ready in time.”

From a guy’s perspective, Jarod Juhl, a sophomore, states, “I liked it better on Friday because everything was done and over with in one night.”

“I liked the dance better on Friday because everything, like coronation and the parade, were all back-to-back rather than spread out,” said sophomore Ali Goetzinger.

As a freshman, Jack Keane didn’t get the experience of the dance on Friday, but he still thought, “It was pretty tight!”

Michael Klein (senior), more commonly known as Drama, said, “I liked it on Saturday because the Oklahoma football game was on the TV in the commons!”

Personally, I liked the dance better on Saturday, but I didn’t mind it on Friday either. I think the reason I liked it on Saturday was because it was different and new. It made Homecoming last the whole weekend rather than just one night, and I liked that because I simply love Homecoming! I would love to hear what you readers think though, so if you have any opinions on this subject, go ahead and leave a comment! :)