A JUICY START
The
McHenry MessengerM
All in for school spirit
planning for many fun events and lots of fun
Students at MCHS walk into the main gym of the Upper Campus for a pep rally
Everyone is dressed in their class colors and ready to celebrate and participate in many activities planned for this event
On Dec 13, 2024, MCHS is having a pep assembly to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the Freshmen Campus The pep rally committee is
“McHenry High School was founded on December 13th, which is the actual day that we are having the pep rally So it is the literal birthday ” Director of Student Activities Mitchell Stengel says, “There’s going to be a lot of party themed things that students will be getting and participating in ”
Towards the beginning of the school year, the pep rally committee knew that they were going to be celebrating the 100th anniversary
MCHS plans a special pep rally to celebrate its 100th birthday
“So we knew that we were celebrating the 100th birthday this year and toward the beginning of the year,” Stengel says, “We were thinking about the different ways we could celebrate it, and having a pep rally was one of the ways to celebrate ”
The pep rally committee started in September this year Later than they usually start planning
“So we start the pep rally committee in September Any students can join, and we do it at both Freshmen and Upper campuses,” Stengel says, “every week we meet and come up with what games we’re playing, what supplies we need to buy, and what the theme’s going to be ”
The pep rally committee does everything from spirit days to running the pep rallies themselves
“They do everything Everything you will see on Friday derives directly from students,” Stengel says, “For example, our Upper Campus chose ‘iconic duos and trios’, which is the spirit day for Thursday, and then our Freshmen Campus chose ‘anything but a backpack’ on Wednesday And it’s not only the spirit week, but it’s also every game that’s played ”
This pep rally is important to our school because we get an opportunity to bring every single student in the building in one room, at the same time “We never get an opportunity to get every single student in the building in the room at the same time,” Stengel says,
Prepping for the future
As the semester comes to a close seniors are faced with tough decisions about college Seniors are having to prepare for college, and go down paths that they have never crossed before
Throughout the year seniors have been being pushed about college, FAFSA and scholarships As the early action deadline for college applications have passed, seniors have started to prepare for college Some need to work on auditions for school, and some need to fill out many college applications
Senior Gavin Wuchter talks about what he is doing to prepare for college going into a music major
“As someone who's going into music and who has to perform an audition,” Wuchter says, “I've been preparing for this for over a year, since last summer, but also my mom, for instance, whenever Homecoming was, the day after, I spent I sat down and I just spent a bunch of time to apply, and we literally spent seven hours and wrote all my essays at once, and she proofread everything for me So I've been essentially just working and doing chunk by chunk There's always something I need to do ”
Senior Jenna Harris has taken a different approach to preparing for college because she wants to do swimming in college Harris also talks about the process she went through to find out what college she wanted to commit to
“I want to go into education, so I looked into their education programs, the top three colleges that I first
narrowed down like my top three colleges, and then I looked into their education programs,” Harris says, “I also looked into their athletic programs, because I want to swim in college I scheduled visits to all the colleges, and went there and saw the campuses, and then I went and talked to the coaches on each of the swim teams and made like pros and cons lists of what I liked best about each college ”
McKennah Hannigan-Jackson, a senior from Crystal Lake South talks about what her process has looked like
“I’ve built up my resume meaning I’ve joined clubs, gotten volunteer hours, been a part of my community on a few different aspects,” HanniganJackson says, “Making sure I record what I am doing As well as getting on top of everything when it’s coming up I completed my college applications very early in the college process for my own benefit, as well as completing FAFSA right when it came out I’ve also visited many college campuses to try and rule out any school I may not be completely interested in ”
“and very rarely, we’re all hype in one direction ”
The culture and climate in a school is definitely what helps the student body thrive the most
“Yes, you have academics, you have all the stuff that makes school run,” Senior Jamison Shea says, “but I think the culture and climate in a school is what helps our student body become successful the most ”
The pep rally committee starts with planning on what activities could happen and a lot of brainstorming on all ideas around
“We just go through the minor details on what type of spirit days we could do, what games we could do, and just come up with more ideas,” Shea says, “so it starts with a whole bunch of brainstorming ”
There was a point in MCHS history where there weren’t any pep rallies because leadership wasn’t prioritized
“We didn’t have pep rallies because leadership didn’t seem as beneficial ” Stengel said, “When I was moved into the role as Director of Student Activities, it was one of the most pivotal things that I needed to make sure that we have ” As the pep rally comes to an end, students exit the Upper Campus excited and optimistic to keep pushing and end off the semester with a successful finals week
As seniors start preparing for college, some seniors have a different process than others
Senior year has been said to be the year with the “lightest load,” but some seniors are feeling the stress that comes along with having to fill out college applications
“I feel like school work on its own is okay it's manageable,” Wuchter says, “but having to like, apply to eight schools and to like preparing for auditions and keeping myself good while also trying to keep good grades, sometimes can be a struggle ”
Harris has found that starting her process earlier in the year has made it easier for her at the end of the semester
“It was definitely stressful at the
beginning of the year, because it was like a lot to handle on top of all the classes ” Harris says, “But I think that getting it done at the beginning of the year helped, because now that we're halfway through the year It's a lot less on my plate I am happy that I got it done early ” Some seniors have started early and have not had as much stress added onto their senior year load
“As for the ‘light load’ of senior year, focusing on college applications has been a priority to me, meaning I got them done pretty quickly, unlike other seniors I know who waited until the early action deadline and was rushing ” Hannigan-Jackson says, “I didn’t want that for myself so I
got it done as soon as I could While doing them it was quite stressful, making sure I put in all the right information and that my essay wasn’t horrible and portrayed what I wanted it to So college applications didn’t really make my year any more stressful, however, the waiting and having to make a decision on which college is specifically for me has added some extra stress to my load ” As seniors have started their process of preparing for college some have committed and some are still making decisions Either way seniors still have a lot of work to do before the end of the year to continue to prepare for college
Seniors have been utilizing the staff and the space in the College and Career center to look at their next steps for college | Photo by: McKenzie Woods
Last year’s pep rally highlights the spirit barrel, while students anticipate who will win | Photo by: Lily Adams
Eli Frommes Digital Editor
Ffion Curtain Online Managing Editor
Holding space for “Wicked”
Margaret Demski
Copy Editor
“Wicked,” one of the most anticipated movies of the year It lives up to its name as tears and laughter fill the air of theaters everywhere
Excitement for this movie has been building for years, as the broadway version opened on Oct 30, 2003 and the book released in 1995 The movie version of “Wicked” was originally announced in 2012, but due to a long development and delays, they finally hired director Jon M Chu and casted Cynthia Eviro as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda in 2021
While preparing to film, Grande and Eviro decided that all songs should be done live to further the connection to the songs This includes the live stunts Eviro did herself during “Defying Gravity ” The live singing gives the movie an extra flare of excitement and authenticity it would be greatly missing without
Most of the sets shown in the movie were entirely real and actually built, including the nine million tulips they planted in one for one of the first scenes of the movie They also actually built a train for the journey to Emerald City, the city itself along with Shiz, the University for the citizens of OZ
This along with the live singing just makes the movie practically perfect in the eyes of many
It applies to every audience, you don’t have to be a musical nerd to understand what is going on, though I would recommend watching “The Wizard of OZ” before watching, even if you don’t the movie would still make sense “The Wizard of OZ” just adds some world building to make the world make a little more sense
The first part of the “Wicked” movie is loved by audiences everywhere
Even through the controversy surrounding the movie before, during and after production and the release, the movie has come out and thrived There have been a significant amount of controversies with the cheating scandal between Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater in 2023, and currently people are worried for the well being
of Grande and Elviro as they have lost a significant amount of weight during production and are crying during almost every interview Most including Grande and Elviro are disproving these claims with the facts that both Grande and
Elviro that they worked exceedingly hard to learn the dances perfectly and have said that they “worked themselves to the bone ” The filming of “Wicked” was also an extremely emotional experience for both Grande and Elviro as doing this
has been both of their dreams for most of their lives Even through this, audiences cannot stop talking about “Wicked,” and how excited they are for the next part of the movie to come out on Nov 21
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One of the most popular broadway shows, Wicked, makes its way to the film screens with Arianna Grande and Cynthia Erivo | Photo by: Universal Pictures