Spirit Week made its return to University High School in September. After over a year of limited travel, classes brought the hustle and bustle of various cities to school as they competed to bring the most school spirit, win the most lunch fests, build the best structures, and paint the best murals.

Spirit Week kicked off with students and staff sporting colorful jerseys from sports teams all across the nation and world. Spirit Week lunch fests were off to a flying start with two rounds of relay races, during which each class was given a set of tasks to complete. The classes battled to finish the relay races first, with the seniors and sophomores each winning a round.

In line with Tuesday’s theme, Tourist Tuesday, the school buzzed with bright tropical prints, floppy hats, bright pink leis, flip flops, and all things vacation. During lunch, the classes competed in a heated battle of trivia. Two representatives from each class showed  off their water balloon handling skills as they tried to catch the water balloon first to answer the trivia question. Ultimately, the sophomores took the win for the day, and brought a close to the second day of Spirit Week.

Students rounded up their bandanas, denim, and cowboy hats to sport Western attire on Western Wednesday. At lunch, class representatives participated in a watermelon eating contest, and the seniors had a hog-killin’ time logging their second lunch fest win and maintaining the ace-high senior Spirit Week reputation.

Post-hump day Thursday brought sleepwear to school for Pajama Day. The sleepy times came to a snooze when the scavenger hunt during the final lunch fest sent classes scrambling to find ID cards, old iPhones, pink scrunchies, and more. The seniors locked in their last lunch fest win as the crossroads heard its final lunch fest class cheers of the year.

As the school day faded into the Spirit Night rush, the two-month-long efforts of the four classes came to life via the help of Trader Joe’s bags, gallons of paint, drills, nails, and plywood.

The seniors brought New York City to the 300s with boom boxes, vibrant Broadway posters, movie scenes in New York, newspaper and magazine covers, pizza and hot dog stands, and a subway car. Planted in the middle of it all was our very own Central Planter, a play on the all too famous Central Park. In the 200s, the juniors highlighted the best of the Los Angeles spirit with a Capitol Records photo booth—which was remarked by some to be the most photogenic spot of the night—a mini outdoor theater, and murals of TV shows and movie sets with pixie lights hanging over the setup. Over in the 500s, the sophomores, laissez les bon temps rouler (let the good times roll) in New Orleans with jazzy tunes, guest singers, and their very own sophomore mocktail (aka the Hurricane Mocktail). The lockers were plastered with scenes from Lady and the Tramp, The Princess and the Frog, and a constructed tram surrounding the NOLA atmosphere. With only a few weeks of preparation, the freshmen brought Las Vegas to the crossroads with a vibrant “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada” sign and a colossal set of dice. Spirit Night ended with class cheers as students gathered for the final spirit walk of Spirit Week.

On Friday, classes sported their respective class colors and gathered in the stadium for the Homecoming Pep Rally, during which class councils performed in a final bid to win Spirit Week and homecoming nominees presented their dances. Together, UHS ended Spirit Week with a performance of the school Alma Mater presented by the marching band and choir.

As students returned to school on Monday, all signs of Spirit Week were gone, the hustle and bustle of the events buried in the back of the minds of most students. The seniors had once again swept the scoreboards, winning Spirit Week, with juniors taking second, sophomores, third, and freshman, fourth.

Perhaps this year’s Spirit Week wasn’t as grandiose as former spirit weeks, with weaker school spirit than usual. But this year’s Spirit Week served a different purpose than the ones prior. Spirit Week this year was not about making bigger structures than the previous senior classes, or having more intricate class presentations. It was about bringing back the Trojan Spirit, and that is exactly what happened.