By Staff Writers Miles Eller and Giuseppe Palmer
While it was not a surprise to most that the senior class of 2023 won this year’s 75th annual Song & Yell class competition, what the casual observer doesn’t realize is the many extra time and commitment the performers put in to help push 2023 to the win.
Seniors who were part of the Pep Club spent a month and a half to make sure they had a good selection of songs and matching choreography that would impress not only the assortment of judges, but also the staff and students.
The Pep Club ended up being split into 3 separate groups; the script writers, choreographers, and decorators in order to be able to complete the amount of tasks needed before the deadline of when Song and Yell took place on September 30th.
For the choreographers to come up with the winning choreography, it took a lot of brainstorming and trying things out in order to come up with the perfect dance to the perfect music. It took weeks to find the perfect choreography for each and every song they chose. Senior choreographer, Natalie Wong said, “When I usually choreograph, I listen to the song then I freestyle. Then I take some ideas from my freestyle and add moves to fill in missing spots to the music.”
The choreographing and coming up with a script for the skit took staying late after school for the first few weeks while the other Senior Pep Club members worked on props and decorations for the field. “Not including practice time I’d say [it took] like 20-25 hours,” says ASB class president and Senior Pep Club member, Grace Ou.
While members would meet every lunch for a month to prepare and often after school to practice the dance, this left them with a more limited schedule and with sacrifices to make in order to practice and prepare for the event. These sacrifices included staying up later for homework, not going to their jobs, or not being able to take care of their younger siblings.
“I sacrificed a lot of homework and tutoring time I needed,” Senior Pep Club member Bernie Kwong says. On top of that he says he was left with very little free time to relax when he wasn’t doing homework for his AP classes or studying. Another Senior member, Lam Tran, says “I would spend time after school making banners, buying decorations, or coming up with ways to get people excited. In the process I sacrificed my time to study and get my assignments done as soon as possible. It was worth seeing all our hard work get put into something though.”
However, when it was finally time to perform in front of the school for song and yell, the majority of the Song and Yell committee members took the field and showed their weeks of hard work and dedication to put on a good performance. “It was definitely a thrill,” says Bernie, who was a part of the performance. “Maybe a little scary at first but you get lost in the crowd and the moment.”
Still, the performance was one all the Seniors would remember when they think back on this year. After it all, Bernie describes the event as the “funnest event at school for senior year,” and totally worth the long hours of effort he and the other students had to put in. When asked about why he participated in Song and Yell despite how much time and hard work it required, he said “it’s senior year, the last year of childhood and you should LIVE it.”
