A new Spirit Week 2011 brought students together in the spirit of this year’s school theme — huliāmahi.

The seniors won the overall first place award by accumulationg the highest point total from their participation in the seven events that took place throughout the week, Monday, Oct. 31-Saturday, Nov. 6.

“We always pull together as a class at the last minute…. We work best under pressure,” senior Keliane Shinyama said.

The juniors made a strong push for the overall award this year, coming in first place in three of the events and second in all the rest. Junior Riley Shiraishi said that the juniors were especially united through this experience. They held two sleepovers to work on their competition entries.

“People were constantly willing to help. They were always asking, ‘What can I do?’ or ‘Do you need me to do something?’ It definitely brought us together,” she said.

With the juniors and seniors battling it out for first place, the competition between the freshmen and sophomores became a matter of who would take third place and avoid coming in last.

The sophomores nearly made a clean sweep of it, taking third place in five of the seven categories, and second place in Battle of the Bands.

They also bonded this week, making posters and preparing for the float and banner.

“I only wish we started preparing earlier,” sophomore Leimana Hassett said.

Though her class came in last, the freshman class president, Shai Ibara, said she is satisfied with their first spirit week and enthusiastic about better spirit weeks in years to come.

“I hope our class shows more commitment in events and getting things organized in the future,” she said.

While Spirit Week was basically the same as in past years, there were some changes. This year, a basic dress option was added to dress-up days. Students could wear designated colors with jeans each day in addition to the usual dress-up options of wearing a full costume or a regular school uniform. This change yielded generally positive responses.

“I like that we had the option for basic dress-up days. Because it was so easy, there was a lot more student participation,” Shiraishi said.

Something else different was the bringing back of boys cheerleading. In 2009, boys cheerleading was cancelled when 50% of the teams included inappropriate content. However, this year it was reinstated thanks to a proposal by the student body government, led by president Christopher Kim.

Another change was that the varsity homecoming game was played at 3:00 p.m. so that a homecoming dance could be held that night. The other option that was considered was to have the dance on Friday night, but student government was worried that the football players would either not want to attend or not be allowed to attend on the night before the big game, and they wanted to be sure that the athletes could be included.

The new scheduling met with some complaints. Originally, people were heard to complain that the direct overhead sun would be too hot for both players and fans, but for this year, the day was overcast, and the weather turned out to not be a factor.

“It was a little hard to come from the game, straight to the dance. There wasn’t much time to get ready,” junior Shayna Ho said that night. Several other people at the dance expressed similar feelings of wishing that they had more of a break between the game and the dance to wind down and regroup.

Another complaint previous to the dance was that some people had work or other obligations to go to during the day on Saturdays.

Alumnus Mana Palafox (’09), who came back for homecoming, said that the stands were not as packed as he’s remembered seeing them, and that the walkways at the top of the stadium were fairly open, compared to years when it was nearly impossible to move on them. Though this may not be directly attributable to the new schedule, it had some speculating.

Student Activities Coordinator, Ms. Naomi Ashman, said that one of the hopes for moving the game to daytime and the dance to nightime was that the momentum of excitement from the game would carry over to the dance.

Senior lineman Ikaika Camanse said, “It was different. I liked having the game in the day…but I wish they would have made the dance either on a night before homecoming or after it.” Camanse also said that he thought it looked like there were more people in the stands, not less.

Senior wide receiver Daylan Machado disagreed about the daytime game, but agreed on the dance. “I didn’t like it. It would have been better if the game was at night, and the dance was rescheduled for another night. It’s tradition. And I was also a little tired,” he said.

Ms. Ashman said that the athletics department and school administration agreed to try the new schedule to see how well it worked and that they will meet to decide whether or not it can or should be continued.

Despite the usual grumbling about judging and other perceived Spirit Week glitches, most students were happy with the work of their student government and peers. The final results of the entire week of spirit competitions were as follows:

Battle of the Bands
4. Freshmen
3. Seniors
2. Sophomores
1. Juniors

Boys Cheerleading
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Seniors
1. Juniors

Step
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Class Cheer
4. Sophomores
3. Freshmen
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Banner
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Seniors
1. Juniors

Float
4. Sophomores
3. Freshmen
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Dress-Up Days
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Overall
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Juniors
1. Seniors