By Helena Savage

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E filled the ears of people in the upper 300 hall, with picturesque visions of 1950’s entertainment, dancers and drive-in moviegoers invited all to 50’s pop-culture, just as students were gifted front row tickets to Buddy Holly’s electric end of the freshmen’s homecoming hallway.

Remarkably, the freshmen claimed the second place spot beating the sophomores in third, and the juniors in last place. The seniors received first place at the pep rally last Friday.

Freshman Faith Pearson described her first homecoming hallway as “an amazing experience, and I never really knew how it was going to go until I was there so that seemed really cool to me.”

“My favorite part, I think it would have to be the drive-in, because right when I walked in, they had mini cars set up like people could stand in,” said Pearson. “They had red paper material over the lights so it made that whole area red, and just how it was decorated, it gave it such a 50’s vibe.”

The portrayal of the drive-in movie theater highlighted the interactive and advanced props, as well as the innovative thinking of the Class of 2022.

Freshman class co-sponsor Kristina Berney proudly expressed that “there’s never really a lot of expectation for freshmen because there’s that understanding of they don’t really know what they’re doing, they haven’t really seen it yet,” said Berney. “I was instantly blown away by just how much initiative they had, and how much they were getting done, and they did seem to get it.”

Therefore, second place did not take Berney by too much surprise because “I mean yes, shocked in that sense because freshmen don’t normally pull off second, but having been down the hallway I knew there was a chance because I just really felt like they had so much consistency down the hallway,” said Berney. The freshman hallway included various details trademarked to the 1950’s era and captured the true essence of a beloved simpler time.

Berney said,  “I also kind of think the 50’s were kind of perfect for the freshmen because I think with the 50’s there was definitely that age of innocence, of like a simpler time.” Their hallway had a harmonious flow and engaging theme throughout its entirety.  “They just had so much energy throughout,” said Berney. The freshman hallway submerged PA back into its founding decade for just one morning, with great involvement and excitement.

Although Berney specifically loved the diner and drive- in sections, “I also liked the way they did the Buddy Holly concert at the end because with the live music,” said Berney. “That’s normally something you don’t see until the upper grades.”

Even though the freshmen beat the sophomores and juniors, their hallways still were each transformed through the decade time portal to the 90’s and 60’s.

Sophomore Sierra Colbert enjoyed recreating the 1960’s because “it had a lot going on that we felt we could really capture in a hallway. So there was the moon landing, and there was Kennedy, and peace protests, and the civil rights protests, so it was like a really eclectic group of things.”

The sophomores also shocked many with various elaborate and memorable elements that many students of PA today could relate to their childhoods. Colbert’s favorite section of the 60’s hallway was Sesame Street because “the way it was done was really fun it’s not something that you’d think of immediately when you think of the 60’s,” said Colbert. “So the idea that something that we all know about came from this decade was fun to do.”

After these two memorable hallways, PA thought it couldn’t get any better until they saw the clouds of neon, Ronald Reagan, iconic 80’s supermodels, and the decadent royal wedding of the lower 200 hallway’s 80’s flashback.

SCA vice president Daniel Bojo relived the visionary senior hallway. “They had Back to the Future, and Mr. Delaney made a whole Delorean, and that was really cool,” said Bojo. “And then they had a bunch of movies like Dirty Dancing and Rocky, and it just was a really good representative of like 80’s culture.”  

Although the senior hallway was comprised of 80s pop culture and unique fashion, it also relished in significant historical events of that decade.

“My favorite section of the senior hallway was the Berlin Wall part because it wasn’t neat, but that’s what made it so cool because it looked like it was just like covered in graffiti,” said Bojo. “And all the people protesting it was really cool because while it showed like pop-culture of the 80’s it also showed political events that happened.”

As the decades of PA homecoming hallways season come to an end, the seniors will leave with a first-place win, leaving the junior class to redeem themselves next year. After another successful round of homecoming hallways, the freshmen set the bar high for next year’s competition.

“I am thinking [the freshmen] are going to come out and really hit the ground running because they got so close this year,” said Berney. “They’re going to want to show like, okay let’s maintain this, so I’m feeling really amped and positive.”