Masuk Free Press

The time has come again as Spirit Week comes to a close for Masuk’s fall pep rally, exciting the students for the kickoff of Homecoming weekend. 

The pep rally began after a day of shortened class periods with the National Anthem, performed by Masuk Juniors Brayden Callahan and Conner Fulchino.

  Then, Masuk’s band fired up the crowd with a series of fast-paced drum beats and songs.

Following the musical start, Red Army advisor and pep rally organizer Joel Castillo continues to rouse the crowd’s spirit with Masuk’s signature “Roller Coaster” cheer.

“We’re going to do chants and cheers where we need the entire gym to help each other out and partake in it,” said Castillo, “We use that moment, also, to kind of help educate the students as to what is going to happen at the [Homecoming football] game tonight.”

Then, the Masuk Cheer team put on an impressive performance for the student body, showcasing their skills and rallying enthusiasm for the Homecoming football game with upbeat music, dance, and acrobatic skills to display before their competition season begins this winter. 

As the pep rally marks the end of spirit week, two students from each grade, one male and one female, are rewarded for their outstanding participation in each themed day of the week. Their names were announced, and they were awarded gift cards to well-known local locations such as McDonalds.

“Throughout the whole week, Spirit Week, we’ve been always trying to get the classes to partake in the unity of the costumes or the attire and the colors,” said Castillo, “Just supporting one another…taking the stickers on the banners to show support for their peers, their friends.”

“At this pep rally today, even though we were all separate throughout the week, representing our own class, today everybody is red, white, and black. So we’re all together as one.

With the student body’s excitement now prominent and audible throughout the gym, fall sports captains are called to stand together in front of the student body, showcasing Panther Pride for Masuk athletics and celebrating its seniors.

After the introductions, the pep rally can come into full swing with the start of its games and activities starring teachers and students.

The first is the sibling balloon race game, in which students in teams of two compete to race across the gym, retrieve a balloon from a bag, return it to their partner, and pop the balloon three separate times in different ways. The first team of Masuk siblings to pop three balloons would be declared the winner. Sophomore Jack Irving and senior Oliver Irving took the crown in this competition.

Next was a frequently recurring game in Masuk’s history of pep rallies: tug of war. This contest is a battle of the classes, meant to excite the students and encourage every grade to cheer for their team in preparation for the football game later the same evening. 

“The whole theme of the pep rally is to try and get the students energized, get them ready,” said senior and Red Army member Stephen Sentementes, “Take a break from school, increase school spirit, and just kind of get everyone ready for the football game tonight.”

The freshman class’s team was first, taking on the senior class. The senior team won, moving on to the next round. After that, juniors faced off against the sophomore class, winning over the younger grade after a longer-lasting game than the former. Moving on to the final round, where the two winning teams faced each other, seniors came out on top after some timely effort and plenty of cheering from their peers. 

In years prior, the game would end with the winning class being placed against a team of teachers, but the crowd was informed that the teachers had forfeited. Instead, the seniors who won would go against Masuk’s Unified Sports team as a new addition to the pep rally’s tug of war. In the end, the Unified Sports team won the game and were awarded cheers and applause from all Masuk students.

After these renowned events, the Masuk Dance team performed a routine showcasing their sharpened skills and school spirit for the student body before their winter season begins, impressing every onlooker with their talent.

After that, a special performance commenced in which students and teachers worked together in groups of two and three, each containing at least one member of the cheer or dance teams, to perform a short dance or routine. It was a fun opportunity for students to show off their talents and wave pom poms with Masuk’s star performers. This performance ended with a Rockette-style kick line that elicited applause and cheers from student and teacher viewers alike.

Following these routines were the final two events of the pep rally, consisting of a new game never seen before and one done yearly due to its stardom among Masuk students.

This latest contest was a mattress relay race, in which players would run and dive onto blow-up mattresses. The four grades would compete in small groups, working with their teammates as they took turns diving until the first team who reached the other side won. This was a competitive and fast-paced competition, resulting in the seniors taking gold once again for their class.

The final competition was a returning favorite: finish that lyric. Two participants from each grade partake one at a time, selecting a number one through ten to hear a snippet of a song and its lyrics. The song would then be paused, and to win, players must state the song lyric that would come next. If they could not finish the lyric, the participating student would be “pied” in the face with a plate of shaving cream. 

Three rounds of this game were played, eliminating the freshman and senior class in the second round and allowing juniors and sophomores to progress to the third. In this final round, Masuk social studies teacher Gregory Parkhurst partook and could not finish his lyric either, resulting in the established consequence of being “pied” with shaving cream just as the freshman and senior students had. The final round ended in a tie between the sophomore and junior classes.

The winner of this challenge for the sophomore class was Jennifer Velky, who recalls the experience as fun and exciting to participate in.

“I participated in ‘guess the lyric,’ and if you don’t guess it right, you get pied in the face,” said Velky. “Everybody was cheering, and like I had my friend, Allison, next to me, so it was really fun. I was with all of my friends, so either way, if I got pied in the face, it would have been funny… [but] sophomore class won, obviously.”

After another year’s successful and uniting pep rally, many students wonder about plans for another one possibly upcoming in the winter or spring.

“We’re having a winter pep rally this year,” Said Sentementes, “We’re going to try for a spring [pep rally,] but I don’t know if it’s going to happen.”

The 2024 fall pep rally energized Masuk students of all classes, bringing grades together as one to cheer on their team and dance the night away on Homecoming weekend. The highly anticipated event is enjoyed and over just as fast, but it stands as a joyous symbol of what is to come, both in the days that follow and throughout the school year. 

“The whole pep rally itself and the chants, and the cheers, and the colors, everything we do is basically bringing everyone together,” said Castillo, “Teaching them, look, we can be great if we work together.”