*clap…clap…clap Clap CLap CLAp CLAP CLAP CLAP

(increase the clapping)* 

(extend pointer finger up high)* goooOOOOOOOOO PANTHERS!

Every student who goes through Powell High school will know that chant and learn to live by it. Seniors, however, get the most hyped up about it. Senior year is the most fun, the slowest and the most memorable year (mainly because we can’t remember anything else)

Seniors have all sorts of traditions that you just have to smile, nod and say OK to. Like senior photos, a senior bash, the senior run, a trip, graduation parties, prom and senioritis. Underclassmen beware: It is contagious.

The most well known of them all? A senior prank. There are some pretty legendary prank pictures online like putting sticky notes, everywhere. Having a senior campout in the school. Putting hundreds of cups all filled with water in the halls. Hiring a mariachi band to follow a faculty member all day long. Balloons — everywhere. (I think the new entry corridor into the school needs some color), Saran-wrapping a car or entryway. Wrapping everything in a classroom, the desks the projector screen, the teacher desk, all in aluminum foil.

At the end of last year, for example, each graduating member of the senior class handed Principal Mr. Jim Kuhn a marble as they walked across the stage and received their diplomas. By the end of the ceremony, Mr. Kuhn had marbles in all of his pockets.

However, in the past there have been some pranks that were not so lighthearted.

“There have been some problems with the senior run … about $5,000 worth of damage because as (kids) ran they were taking their keys out, keying the lockers and scraping paint off,” Mr. Scott Smith said.

“The Homecoming Olympics is kind of an answer to the Homecoming traditions that were not doing what we really would like to see them do. In fact one girl ended up dying because of them. Egg fight. Yeah then they got ran out of town so they are doing them out of town and there was about five kids in the back of a pickup and a kid goes squealing off the road and a kid flies out.”

Mr. Shane Petrie graduated in 1993 and said the junior and senior classes would try to prove who was the best class. There used to be a big bonfire at the fairgrounds and students would burn the big “P”  during Homecoming week. School spirit used to be huge in the ’90s. Students would show up to all the sports, not just football (especially if the games were against Cody).

“The football and wrestling teams would move their coaches’ (or teachers’) cars sideways in the parking spots so they couldn’t get out,” Mr. Petrie said. “The rivalry between Powell and Cody was pretty harsh back then. We would scorch our town letter (the P) in Cody’s football field or use Round up and they would do the same to us.”

Snowcoming was added 2016 as a sort-of winter Homecoming and to fundraise. Another thing it is, it prepares us during the three months of nothingness for prom.