Students from around the school gathered in the big gym Aug.11 to start the school year with the first pep rally.

Mrs. Emily Cancellare, the new student activities director, made sure to gather all spirit and display it for students to see.

School officials made the switch of director toward the end of last year, to prepare for senior year.

“Every job has pressures, but they are really fun pressures,” Cancellare said. “I get to be apart of a lot of great things that happen on campus that make a lot of memories for students outside of their academic classes, and I feel honored to be apart of that. My goal is for the students to hold their positions in high esteem and take advantage of the opportunities they have being leaders, going out and talking to adults on their own, advocating for what they want to accomplish in this organization, and I am the facilitator of that,” Cancellare said. 

According to Cancellare, being able to learn time management and organizational skills has helped mold her for the newly acquired position.

The first pep rally with seniors was off to a start as senior class president, Marissa Atilano took the microphone to provide instructions to the audience and get them excited for this upcoming school year. Atilano recognized the amount of energy coming from all sections of the gym.

“This pep rally was amazing compared to previous ones,” Atilano said. “You can really see the rise in school spirit now that we have seniors. There was just so much pep, and finally you can see how a pep rally should be for a high school.”

According to Atilano, the reason for such major improvement in school spirit has been the result of a new student activities director. Previous years have struggled to maintain a sense of school pride. Also, she attributes this being seniors last chance to showcase spirit has been a reason why it has increased dramatically.

“Last year I think our previous student activities director had a lot on his plate and was unable to dedicate a lot of his time to the student activities and school spirit,” Atilano said. “Mrs. Cancellare has always role modeled school spirit and now she’s putting that spirit to work.” 

The next pep rally is scheduled for Oct. 19th.