Although there isn’t a dance this fall, and it’s been two years since students have gotten to celebrate, PHS continues to keep their Viking pride alive.  

My freshman year I had the opportunity to attend the homecoming dance; while I didn’t take advantage of it then, I wish I had. Now, I don’t know if I will ever get the chance to attend a high school dance. I do have my reasons for deciding not to go but it’s one of those things I regret not doing. The student body and staff have no control over when or if we can have a dance because of the regulations, but those regulations are getting dropped in other school districts so you never know.  

Viking pride is something I hear a lot but still don’t fully understand what it means. What I do know is that PHS is more involved and dedicated to helping their students than most other high schools. I don’t think any other schools take time out of their learning to help better their students like PHS does with Character Strong. The Staff and Student body not only help us prepare for our future but help us enjoy the now and create memories that will hopefully last a lifetime. I think that was partially the goal of spirit week, the other part was to connect us as a community and school.  

From my point of view, Spirit Week took a minute to catch on; every day that went by there seemed to be more participation. Wednesday was the day that I really started to see people dressing up. Maybe it was because pink is really easy to find in your closet or because everyone actually knew to dress up. I didn’t know to dress up on Tuesday because I didn’t see any advertisement until the week of.  

 Wednesday was by far my favorite spirit day; I know it was supposed to be “Mean Girl’s” theme but to me I thought of it more as cancer awareness day. Almost one year ago I lost someone who meant a lot to me from cancer. I don’t know if people thought of it the same way I did but looking around and seeing all the people who wore pink put a smile on my face. 

I think the student body’s goal was to keep Viking tradition alive. I felt like they were trying to make up for last year and not being able to do anything. And while they have no control over whether we can have a dance or not, we don’t want to miss an opportunity or miss out on something because we didn’t try. From my point of view this whole school year is about hope, hope that we can get back to something at least semi normal. Having fall fest, the homecoming game, and spirit week brings back that feeling of normality, and I think that’s something we all need. They were trying to bring us together as a school and community, really show us how much pride there is in being a Viking and ultimately, I think they succeeded.  

They gave us the gift of a shared experience, other than Covid-19 and online school, that’s something none of us have. If you’re like me, you have never been to a school dance, although right now our chances look slim, there is always the possibility that it could happen.