The 2025-26 winter sports season for Sunlake High School has for the most part come to a close, now ushering in the spring athletics. On January 29th, the winter teams got their send-off with the neon-themed pep rally. Sophomore Ruby Rowe was a participant in this event, as she was a member of the girls’ weightlifting team. Meanwhile, Amelia Lester, another fellow 10th grader, was a spectator of the pep rally. “I really enjoy the pep rallies,” Ruby expressed, “because it allows you to show your school spirit alongside your friends.” Interestingly, while many students opted to skip the pep rally this time around, Amelia noted that those who were in attendance seemed especially spirited. She stated, “everybody who showed up seemed very excited to be there and to support the teams being recognized.” 

Ruby, being on one of the winter teams, participated in two of the pep rally games, that being the classic wig-snatching chase as well as a less familiar activity. “A few people on the girls weightlifting team played this game where you had to stack moving boxes on top of each other to make a giant tower.” Ruby detailed that it was a lot of fun working together with her teammates to construct the tower. “We even got on each others’ shoulders in order to reach the top of our tower and get our boxes taller than the other stacks, and we were going against the basketball team who are all super tall, so it was pretty difficult.” Despite not winning, Ruby walks away with a memorable experience. Despite not participating in any of the games herself, Amelia was very invested as she observed everything go down from atop the bleachers. She has her own disposition on who should have won the box stacking competition, but that’s neither here nor there. 

It’s quite possible that what really enhanced the pep rally was the theme, which the school doesn’t do often. “I found the neon theme fun because we got to play with glowsticks and that made the whole thing very energetic,” Ruby shared. Amelia, likewise, found it cool that the lights were off and everything was glow in the dark for the majority of the pep rally. Many kids had been under the impression that the neon theme simply meant wearing neon colors and calling it a day. Taking a different spin on the usual pep rally routines, such as the glow in the dark concept, makes the assembly all the more entertaining and allows student to look forward to these kinds of events.