Senior cheerleader Melanie Burbey designed and created the Star Wars themed costumes for the pep rally on Sept. 7.

Each grade level wore a different costume to represent Star Wars characters. Seniors wore Princess Leia costumes. Juniors wore Jedi costumes. Sophomores wore Han Solo costumes, and freshmen dressed as Chewbaccas. Burbey had to make 24 costumes.

“It only took a couple hours to put all those costumes together,” Burbey said. “This is because my awesome mom and sister helped me design, cut, glue and sew.”

In order to ensure costumes do not interfere with the cheerleaders stunts, Burbey made sure to make them as comfortable and fitting as possible.

“As we were making them we had to take tumbling and stunting into consideration and make sure that the costumes did not get in the way,” Burbey said. “Overall, the costumes added a little something extra to the pep rally and helped us all to engage in the theme.”

JV cheerleader Audrey Rodgers said the cheer outfits helped bring a greater  sense of enthusiasm to the pep rally and school day.

“I feel like we got more crowd involvement because of the Star Wars theme,” Rodgers said. “Our costumes were not difficult to stunt or tumble in at all. It was actually really easy to dance in too.”

The Star Wars theme was not only a pep rally theme, but also involved students outside of the cheer program. Students and teachers were encouraged to support the theme by dressing as their favorite Star Wars characters or wearing Star Wars shirts and accessories.

“I just happened to have all the clothes and stuff to put together a Star Wars costume,” biology teacher Kalin Wells said. “So I just went with it. I really feel that the theme bridged the gap between staff and students. I do think that from now on, any themed pep rally should have a prize, or some kind of spirit stick for best costume in every grade level though. I feel like that would really help get more people involved.”