Jacksonville High School celebrates its Homecoming the week of September 9-15 this year. The new school year brings lots of excitement in high school, and with Homecoming approaching fast, the whole student body has lots of fun with many student-led activities planned. From spirit days, the pep rally, football game, parade, and the dance, something everyone seems to enjoy is the pep assembly.

Last year’s assembly was just as exciting as our upcoming event. There were outstanding performances from the drumline, cheer squad, J’ettes, and Color Guard. Seniors took most of the wins of the numerous contests that were held. The 2017 Homecoming court consisted of the following: Sydney Hembrough, Daisy Wood, Chloe Woods, Elysia Moore, Grace Hughes, Bobby Kaufmann, Kameron Chappell, Sam Brockschmidt, Ethan Karr, and Luke Hewitt. On Thursday, last year’s royalty, Daisy Wood and Bobby Kaufmann, will crown our new 2018 King and Queen.

This year’s pep rally was on Thursday, September 13, 2018 in the West Gym at JHS. Safely I can say that this event is probably the most exciting thing about Homecoming week, other than the Homecoming dance itself. Students and Staff participate in the fun events and games such as girls’ football throwing, boys’ cartwheel contest, pie eating, tug-a-war, pyramid building, wing eating, and class cheers.

The pep assembly also includes the announcement of this year’s Homecoming court. This year’s Queen candidates are Olivia Bobb, Chloe Burrus, Molly Carmody, Sadikshya Ghimire, Sarah May, and Myka Thies. King candidates are Zackary Belford, Austin Dufelmeier, Lukas Hadden, Trevor Huston, Andrew Keller, and Adam Schumacher. This year’s Homecoming King and Queen are Trevor Huston and Olivia Bobb. The event winners from this year’s Pep Rally were Savannah Seymore (girls’ football throw), Jordan Cave and Tyger Vaniter (boys’ cartwheel contest), Zack Belford (pie-eating contest), Seniors (tug-o-war), Seniors (boys’ pyramid build and final round winners), Juniors (girls’ pyramid build) Coach Mark Grounds (staff versus students wing-eating competition), and the Seniors (class cheer).

The 2018 Pep Rally was one for the books and kicked off a great start to the Homecoming weekend!