With Gibson Southern High School recently turning 50, Titans banded together to show their pride by decorating the halls and taking part in spirit days throughout the week. Amanda Sefton, Gibson Southern’s Vice Principal, was one of the people who helped plan the event.
“When this idea came up, we wanted to not only make something special for the whole community but definitely highlight being a part of it as a student in the school building,” Sefton said. “We tried to come up with some activities that we thought kids may get into and enjoy.”
Sefton described the idea behind the spirit day points as not only an opportunity to bring joy to the students but also to motivate students to become more involved in school spirit day activities. From there, the hallway decorating contest emerged.
“I had seen stuff myself from social media reels over the years and thought that would be fun to bring to our school,” Sefton said. “The 50th was just a good time to do it.”
Sefton started by emailing the staff, asking if anyone would be interested in helping students decorate the halls. She received an overwhelming response from the staff members and assigned them halls based on their location in the school. Gibson Southern High School teachers Jane Toth and Pat Bengert helped the freshman. Librarian Kara Martin with receptionists Tracey Bender and Stephanie Hollis helped the sophomores. Teachers Valerie Zimmer, Kasey Knaeble and Amy Michel helped the juniors. Teachers Lindsay Treadway and Claudia Kinnaird helped the seniors.
“I always was very involved with helping the school to look better, not just this school but also my other school,” Spanish teacher Kinnaird said. “When I noticed they needed help for the decorating, I said, ‘Well, let’s do it.’ We (the seniors]) came Sunday at 11, and we didn’t leave until five that day. And we decorated everything. That’s why I helped. The kids need to see how teachers get involved as well.”
Sefton knew that if she wanted this to succeed, she had to get students involved as well. She sent out an email and had a great turnout with around 25 students in each hallway helping to decorate.
“I had reached out to the Student Council who got two students per grade level to be on the planning team,” Sefton said. “I then reached out to the cheerleaders to make sure with it being a school spirit event they would assist, and so the cheerleaders from each grade level were involved in their respective hallways. For the juniors and seniors that have class officers, we ensured that they were a piece of that as well.”
Gracelynn Dilbeck, a sophomore, was part of helping with the hallway decorating contest. With it being such a big project, she gathered some friends and started to work.
“We pretty much just started by gathering a lot of people together, and we looked on Pinterest for a while to find ideas,” Dilbeck said. “We had to photocopy all the yearbooks in the library and cut out the pictures we wanted, and we had to sort through all the pictures that were blurry because the pictures were older.”
Within three weeks, Dilbeck and her friends had everything ready to start decorating. They thought the finished product turned out great.
“I really enjoyed it,” Dilbeck said. “It was definitely worth all the stress and everything.”
In addition to the hallway decorating contest, students had the opportunity to participate in spirit days themed specifically for Gibson Southern’s 50th anniversary. With help from the planning team, Jon Adams, Stephanie Hollis, Dan Lienemann, Melissa Matsel and Adam Bledsoe, Sefton put together the spirit days and spirit points.
“With throwback t-shirt day, we’ve seen so many of our Titans wear things from their parents’ eras, and we thought that it would be fun,” Sefton said. “The 70s day we obviously wanted to do because the school opened in the 1970s. The 50s day was because we were celebrating 50 years, and the other themes were all surrounding gold because a golden anniversary is a 50th year anniversary.”
Dilbeck shared that the spirit days’ competition aspect has helped motivate her to participate. She likes the idea of the spirit points and loves the spirit days that the planning team has created.
“I love spirit days because it gets everybody involved,” Dilbeck said. “I like seeing kids’ school spirit because some people go all out, and it’s crazy. It gives people a lot of creative freedom.”
The planning team also put together the Golden Treasure Hunt, which reflected the gold theme and was a bit of fun for students, especially since it happened directly after the PSAT. Overall, the vision was to display as much Titan gold as possible, and the student section exceeded Sefton’s expectations.
“I think it was fun for our school and our community,” Sefton said. “It exceeded all the expectations, so it’s been fun to look back at those memories already.”
