Spirit days, murals and more! Wildcat's celebrate Winterfest, 2026

Leadership students prepare for Winterfest dance ticket sales this week. (Audrey Brownridge, Editor in Chief)

By Hailee Robinette

Staff writer

Winterfest week is here, and there are so many fun things to participate in! To start the week, there are spirit days.

Monday is President's Day, so no school, and no spirit day, but Tuesday kick starts the week with Construction Zone day! Wednesday is BBQ Dad vs. Soccer Mom, Thursday is 2016 day, and last but not least, Friday is Class Color day!

As always, seniors wear red, juniors wear blue, sophomores wear yellow, and freshmen wear orange. Dressing up these days can get spirit tickets awarded, which will go towards your class getting the jug.

Along with the spirit days, there is also hallway decorating. Classes have been working hard to make decorations to fill their themed hallways, and on Thursday after school, the real decorating begins.

Student mural painting continues throughout Winterfest week. (Audrey Brownridge/Editor in Chief)

There will be three hours for the grades to put up all of the decorations, and the following morning, judges come and score each hallway to give each class points towards the spirit jug.

The points don't stop there! Each class is also scored on a mural painting which is painted on the windows in front of the school.

The windows must be a majority of the class´s color to get the most amount of points. These murals are such a great way to allow students to display their creativity and represent the theme their class chose. 

The assembly games are another way that a class will earn points! Each game, selected by leadership students, has a signup sheet, and at the beginning of the month, students from each grade signed up.

The games this year are Hungry Hungry Hippo, musical chairs, dodgeball, and the pizza box knockout. I talked to leadership to ask how they choose their spirit games.

I asked Lexi Gembel, and she said, “The assembly group looks for inspiration for games on social media. They then go through the logistics of each game and eliminate those that don’t comply with school safety rules. After they've narrowed them down, they get each game approved.”

Elizabeth Rabbideau, left, and Lexi Gembel show off Winterfest dance tickets (Audrey Brownridge/Editor in Cheif)

I asked Lexi and Elizabeth Rabbideau which group that they're in for spirit weeks. Elizabeth’s job is to plan the dance.

When asked what her favorite part was about planning the dances, Elizabeth replied, “I love picking out the decorations and themes, making the playlist is also very fun, it's a great way to channel my creativity into something for everybody to see”.

I then asked Lexi which group she is in. Lexi is in the group that is in charge of the king and queens. She said that her favorite part is “seeing people's reactions to winning, I can always tell when it's something they've worked hard for and really wanted”. 

You can imagine that this week is very stressful for leadership students, so to finish the interview, I asked Lexi and Elizabeth if they find these weeks to be more fun and exciting or stressful.

They said, “In the heat of the week, it is more stressful because it feels like everything goes wrong, but despite that, seeing everything come together at the assembly and dance is very rewarding”.

With all these upcoming events, make sure to participate this week and contribute to your class and have fun!