As the summer wraps up, organizations such as band, football, volleyball,  and cheerleading are back at school practicing and preparing for the school year. As they come back together, freshmen are able to get a head start on the year, and students are able to prepare for another great season.

“To get started for band we’ve been having practice every day,” sophomore Brooke Luper said. “[We’ve been] in the heat and marching and making sure we’re playing off, and then for cheer we’ve been making run-through signs and learning dances and getting cheers down before Meet the Eagles, and it’s just been stressful but also fun.”

During these summer activities, the upperclassmen are in charge of making sure the freshman know their part and can do their job. They all learn to work as a team and make sure that they get that high school experience early which helps make high school less stressful on the first day.

“They (freshman) have a group to belong to, they have a family, and they have a place to be,” band director Steven Moore said. “So when they do get up here to this high school it’s not brand new to them and they do have a place they can come to and say ‘this is home base’ and they have people down here they know and can come to if something happens.”

Students in athletics have been preparing through Performance Course (PC) all summer.  This is a program where they come to school in the morning to work out, then stay for an hour and then have the rest of the day to themselves. Kids in activities such as football come to school in August in preparation for school and the first game.

“For freshman, it’s a little bit different,” head football coach Mike Meador said. “In junior high football doesn’t start until school starts, so first day of school they go out and get their equipment and all that kind of stuff, so for freshman it is a new thing because they start two weeks prior to that.”