Students deck the halls of Freedom High School

The annual Freedom versus Liberty game hypes of the students for hallway decorating

Keri Kipp

News Editor

  Every year, students and staff become extremely riled up as spirit week approaches the school. One of the main parts of this week that give students a way to get involved is the hallway decorating competition among the classes and the band.

  “Hallway decorating is one of my favorite Freedom traditions. It is so special to create such a large project with my friends and fellow classmates, and it is always fun to see what everyone does,” said Rachel Black, senior class president.

  Every group of students as a “team”, chooses an original theme for their hallway months before decorating actually begins. Then on Thursday, the class officers and presidents, a few seniors and I had stayed after school everyday to paint signs and plan,” said Black.

  The locations and themes for each hallway are as follows: The seniors were assigned the main lobby as board games, the juniors to the cannon lobby as Freedom through the decades, the sophomores to the fountain lobby as beach, the freshmen to the biology wing as Spongebob, and the band to the band hallway as New York City.

  “My goal for the senior hallway was to create an atmosphere that would make students and faculty nostalgic of playing games as a child with their family and friends. I thought it would be fun to contrast our transition into adulthood with our memories from childhood,” said Black.

  Planning had started in August, the buying of supplies was a must at least three weeks in advance, and it all needed to be put together at once, days before the game.

“The class officers, a few seniors, and I had stayed after school everyday to paint signs and plan two weeks before spirit week,” said Black.

  Each and every hallway took weeks to create and put together.

  “On Thursday night, at least 20 different seniors came and helped us all out. I was very thankful that so many of my classmates were willing to help. So before everyone left, I had them all sign a huge poster and I made it a focal point next to the stairs so other students and staff would see the students that helped put it together,” said Black.

  All of the hallways that were on display in the school on Friday were absolutely amazing, and definitely succeeded at showing all of the hard work that was needed for this task. However, only one of the classes could win the overall award for best hallway of 2018. That winner was in fact, the band.

  “The inspiration for our hallway was our halftime show. Every year, we try to center our hallway around our field show. The theme for the show this year is broadway so we chose to do New York City as our hallway,” said Isabelle Jabbour, senior band vice president.

  Although band is not officially a class of the school, they are an extremely big part of our school, and we appreciate everyone who was involved. Every year, their hallway is stunning, yet they never get the opportunity to win overall and now they finally have.

  “To me personally, hallway decorating is about the school spirit and having fun while also being creative and incorporating Freedom into real life places and ideas. For band overall, hallway decorating means showing all of our outside creativity and talents to the rest of the school,” said Jabbour.

Photo credit: Kerilyn Kipp