Robert Wertz | Raider Staff

This fall, LCHS is trying something new in an effort to boost school spirit. Throughout the 2018-2019 school year the SCA will put on three mini pep rallies “to improve school spirit and create more of a cohesive feeling within the student body,” SCA Vice President Ellen Jones said.

The mini pep rallies will be held during the last fifteen minutes of the day, unlike regular pep rallies which are about an hour.

The first mini pep rally was scheduled for August 31 for the football game against Millbrook, but was delayed due to weather, and ended up getting moved to September 21 for the home football game against the Riverside Rams.

The other pep rallies were organized for the homecoming game and the Heritage game, “but the homecoming game will have a full-length Pep rally to present boy’s court”, Jones said. The SCA intends to continue holding mini pep rallies for the basketball season, but they haven’t fully decided on the matter yet.

Nancy Thomas, the SCA sponsor since 2006, said, “the mini-pep rallies are the idea of the SCA students to further recognize students and to enhance school spirit.” The idea was created last school year by SCA members Jones and President Asher Freese.

All the mini pep rallies, and the regular pep rallies are all organized by the SCA. “We have a multitude of people who work on different aspects of these events such as special effects, scheduling, creative input, and more,” Sofia Fagan said.

“The mini pep rallies require more effort to coordinate than the longer ones simply because they are high-impact and high-energy events. So, within the span of fifteen minutes, all SCA members have to follow a strict schedule of acts performed by different student groups and make sure that there is sufficient time for everything that was planned previously,” Fagan said.

In the first mini pep rally, the rally began with the LCHS football team running into the gym through a banner made by the varsity cheer team, who later did a cheer routine. This was followed by football player Luke Kendrat giving a motivational speech to boost enthusiasm for the game.

To put on a mini pep rally, it takes around two to three weeks. The “SCA usually divides itself into committees, especially in the fall when we have Homecoming, Powderpuff, and Pep Rallies all in the same season,” Fagan said. Every different committee is led by one of the senior officers who oversee the specific task at hand.