On April 3, Tiger Sports Council (TSC) hosted its final pep rally of the 2018-‘19 school year. Instead of taking place in Tiger Gym I like past assemblies, the event was hosted outside on the soccer field. On a more traditional note, the rally recognized spring varsity athletes and hosted various festivities such as friendly competitions between the sports teams and a performance from D$Q.
“The reason why TSC hosted the 2019 spring pep rally on the field was because we wanted to try something that we never tried before and to let more students come watch,” said Andrew Song (11), TSC executive. “Since not a lot of students were able to attend the winter season pep rally, the TSC members and executives decided to shake things up a bit and add a bunch of new fun features for the spring season event.”
To the astonishment of many, D$Q was not the only organization to perform a choreography at the pep rally. The HSSC stunned the crowd with a surprise performance of K-pop group Blackpink’s Ddu-du Ddu-du. Each of the respective grade level councils had individual portions during the song, which culminated in the final chorus where all 25 HSSC members danced together. Although the HSSC, with the help of D$Q, had been preparing this display for several weeks before the event, the secrecy of participants made the reveal all the more shocking. By the song’s end, many students in the crowd were cheering and laughing as their representatives tried to awkwardly spin and flail their arms in unison.
“I think it’s the job of HSSC to improve daily SIS life and make school more enjoyable for students,” said Younchan Hwang (10), HSSC Sophomore Council Representative. “Sometimes that means planning fun events. Other times, it may mean representing students when we talk to the administration. However, often times it is as simple as dancing to put a smile on our friends’ faces.”
The pep rally crowd included not only SIS students, but KIS student council officers as well. Previously, on Jan. 18, the rival school’s student council had invited SIS HSSC members to experience KIS’s pep rally in order to trade ideas about event planning. On April 3, SIS representatives returned the favor by inviting KIS to join the SIS rally and to continue the exchange between the schools. The KIS delegation stayed after the display for HSSC’s KAIAC Kick Off, where the student council provided a free barbeque and school spirit-related festivities before the tigers and phoenix squared off in a pair of varsity soccer games.
“Even though we’re technically school rivals, the high school student councils of KIS and SIS have been doing a lot of collaboration from even my first year as an HSSC advisor,” said Kendall Sadler, HSSC advisor. “They invited us to their pep rally during basketball season so we could see what they did, if we could take any ideas back, if there was anything they did that we liked, what we would do the same, and what we would do differently. So this time, since they invited us previously, we asked them to join us so we could return the favor.”