First Day Festivities
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Senior and Student Body President Lauren Ellwanger conveys her excitement for this year through a speech during Convocation.
PHOTO | Sofis Aguayo'
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Junior Addie Hiestand flips through her new yearbook at the yearbook signing ceremony.
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Staff members pass out popsicles to students on their way to the courtyard for the yearbook signing ceremony.
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The senior class chants the famous words of “vive sion” during the school song at the end of convocation.
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Senior Olivia Mancina lifts up the microphone to lead in singing the school song.
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The freshmen students stand as Student Body President Lauren Ellwanger calls each of their names.
PHOTO | Sofia Aguayo'
The entire school came together in the gym for Convocation to welcome the new students and teachers on Monday, Aug. 24, then filtered out to the courtyard for the first ever yearbook signing ceremony. Spirits were high during these first-day activities as it was the first all-school assembly since the early 2020 school year.
As the first event of the school year, Convocation sets the ball rolling for the new year and provides inspiration and excitement for all the opportunities to form and to grow relationships. Senior class president Grace Beelman wrote her speech about “showing up for each other”. These words turned out to be the theme of Convocation, as Sion President Alicia Kotarba also centered her speech around these inspirational words.
“This year is special in that we get the opportunity to be there for each other in ways we couldn’t last year,” Beelman said. “I want every grade to take advantage of a less restricted school year and show up for their sisters because I think that’s how you make the most of your high school experience, by being an active and supportive member of the community”
After realizing there was no established event to look through the new yearbooks and get them signed by classmates, Publications Advisor Valerie Crook decided to dedicate a time to flip through the book which the yearbook staff worked on the year before. Crook thought that even though the book comes out the next school year in the fall, the year should still be appreciated on paper.
“I just thought it would be something that’s not too late to do,” Crook said. “We could totally pull it off and it’s great recognition for the staffers.”
In addition to it being nice for the students to look back on the previous year and get their friends’ signatures, the ceremony was an especially rewarding day for the senior yearbook staffers. Current Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook, Paige Dernier, relayed that the ceremony was a good boost in enthusiasm and was a reassuring experience.
“It was kind of scary, to be honest, just because we worked so hard on it and when you look at something forever, obviously it doesn’t look as good as when someone sees it for the first time so just seeing everybody’s reaction saying that it looks so good was really nice.”