As students pile into the gym on pep rally day, everything is already set up. The band, sports teams, and clubs are ready for their cue. Banners and games are in position. The words “good morning Lancer Nation” echo through the gym. It’s pep rally day.
Who is behind the planning and preparing for the pep rally? The Pep Rally Team led by adviser Steven Juster, who has nothing but good things to say about the team.
“I love them,” Juster said. “They are creative and fun and work hard. They are a great team to work with.”
To get ready for the pep rally, junior Callie Dillon and the team, consisting of 10 members, start planning months in advance. Dillon, one of the captains this year, will be the first student who has been captain two years in a row. Dillon said joining the pep rally team was “the best decision.”
“I was asked by [Juster] when I met him a couple of years ago when I was donating my hair,” Dillon said. “Then I met the team and they were all so nice, then I decided to join.”
Brainstorming ideas
For the team, the goal of each pep rally is to make it better than the last. To do this, Dillon said they plan “a lot.”
“We get together and have some meetings,” Dillon said. “We bring up ideas for games, and what we think we can improve on from the last pep rally. I ask my teammates what they want to do differently, and then we write four drafts of what we think is going to happen and then run it through.”
Games are a huge part of the pep rally as the team loves to get students “engaged.” Dillon gets a lot of ideas from TikTok. She likes to see what other schools do and get student recommendations. However, Dillon and her teammate freshman Lauren Stowell agree that Juster “comes up with a lot of ideas.”
“[Juster] is very creative,” Dillon said. “Sometimes we get emails like: ‘oh I was mowing my lawn and I thought of this idea’ and that’s how we come up with most of our games.”
Planning the rallies
When starting to plan the pep rally, Dillon, Stowell, and the rest of the team have “small meetings with small ideas” that turn into bigger ideas, resulting in the pep rally. After creating a “very detailed” script and getting assigned duties, the girls start practicing at school and at home.
“I get my script ahead of time so I can highlight every role that I’m in, and I practice it in my house,” Dillon said. “I’ll just walk around saying my lines. In my free periods, after school, or before school I go and help get everything organized and just make sure people know their roles too.”
As the rally approaches, the girls make sure they are “really” ready about a week before pep rally day. Freshman team member Kaylee Rouleau makes sure she is on top of her duties.
“We have a list of things we need to do before it and also a schedule,” Rouleau said. “[Before pep rally day], I make sure I have everything [ready] and I know what I have to do.”
As a captain, Dillon wants to make sure everyone is “comfortable with what they are doing.”
“This year we have a lot of new members,” Dillon said. “[Senior] Katie Machnik and I are the captains, so our role is to make sure if someone messes up it’s on all of us. We are a team, and if someone is not there, or if someone opts out of a part, we fill that instantly.”
Why the red shoes?
Everyone in the stands can see the pep rally teams’ bright, red shoes. Stowell believes their well-known shoes make them “stand out,” and Dillon said the shoes make them look “neat and together.”
“Teams and clubs have uniforms,” Dillon said. “The red shoes match with our tops and we all decided our shoes were going to be red instead of blue. They’re cute.”
Getting ready for the “big day”
Soon enough, the day arrives and the girls are ready at the school around 7 a.m. There is a quick debriefing before they head over to the gym, then, it’s showtime.
“Once everything is at the gym, we start setting up,” Dillon said. “We run through everything one more time, then put out the banners. Next, we prepare for teams to come and we set everything up in our corner where you can’t see. Finally, we test the music and just have fun.”
During the pep rally, Dillon said she and the other girls have “a lot on their minds.”
“I’m thinking ‘What am I doing next?’” Dillon said. “‘What are other people doing? What are the students doing and thinking? How can I engage people? How can I get it so everyone participates? How can I do my job better to make everyone want to participate?’”
The clean-up and the comments
After the pep rally, the team does a cleanup of the gym. When they do, Dillon said it can be “wild.”
“The most recent pep rally with the confetti and popcorn was hard to clean,” Dillon said. “We do have to run up and down the bleachers to collect papers, but people leave things in there all the time. Last time, we found a pair of shoes.”
Feedback can be helpful for the team when trying to make the next pep rally better than the last. Teachers and students email the team with their suggestions.
“We all sit in a group and read the feedback we’ve gotten,” Dillon said. “We take the suggestions and we remodel our games.”
Always wanting to improve
Improving personally is also something the team does. They like to focus on what went well and what they can do better next time. When the team makes a mistake, they “can’t forget it” according to Dillon.
“Normally we all know what we messed up on and it kind of replays in our heads,” Dillon said. “I remember the last pep rally we did, months ago, I stuttered when I was announcing the Lancer Twirlers.”
Team is more like “family”
All the girls “love” helping out with the pep rallies. Dillon loves to inspire girls on the team to keep going with the team like she has. For Stowell, assisting with the pep rally has been passed on to her.
“My sister did it, so it’s like a tradition,” Stowell said.
The girls say that being on the team is like being in a “tight family.” Stowell said it is very easy to “work together” when it comes to preparing and doing the pep rally. It’s “always fun” being with the team according to Dillon.
“We see each other all the time and we talk about everything,” Dillon said. “We sit around and eat food and we talk about pep rallies. The atmosphere makes it always exciting.”
The team loves to get students involved and get people motivated to show up for their school. By supporting sports teams and the school, the effect the team has on LHS is undeniable.
“I think [being on the pep rally team] just gives you more of an awareness about everyone at the school,” Dillon said. “We get to introduce clubs that people don’t necessarily know. We uplift people’s spirits and I think we do a pretty good job.”
