In the spirit of homecoming, the senior tradition of decorating overalls or jeans to celebrate seniors’ upcoming graduation was a huge success last week.
As the school prepared for the homecoming football game on Friday, Sept. 20, some seniors chose to make a statement with their denim using school colors.
“I painted ‘senior’ on one leg and ‘2025’ on the other, my name and then a horseshoe and stars,” senior Kira Dagenhart said. “Anything to make it really creative and fun.”
The denim gave seniors the opportunity to personalize their creations and make something unique that they felt would showcase their enthusiasm for senior year.
“It’s just fun to paint jeans, I put ‘homecoming,’ ‘senior,’ ‘class of 2025’ and my name,” senior Ranayja Diaz said. “It feels good [to be a senior]. I feel like a top dog.”
The tradition also helped seniors connect with their peers, build a sense of community around the school and make their last year at McNeil more memorable.
“I think it’s nice to do fun, crafty things during senior year so it makes it more interesting,” senior Nila Arunkumar said. “I painted my name and ‘2025’ in Mavtastic colors like blue, green and white.”
Additionally, denim is a great way for seniors to participate in school traditions and be more involved in school spirit, especially for homecoming a week that was full of school-wide activities.
“[The tradition] is really fun, I like arts and crafts, and I think it’s something that everybody already did so I’d feel left out if I hadn’t done it,” Dagenhart said. “I also created a mum. It was really big with a teddy bear and a ton of different colors.”
Senior traditions like these contributed to the excitement seniors felt last week about their last homecoming season and helped to motivate the rest of the school to get excited too.
“I made overalls because it’s tradition,” Arunkumar said. “I can’t wait to graduate.”
