As Homecoming 2025 is approaching, high school students are gearing up to ask their significant other, or potential love interest, to the dance. These days, high school students will scroll social media and try to come up with an idea that best fits their potential date.
Homecoming proposals have not always been this extravagant and thoughtful. As the years go on, teenagers feel the need to always one-up each other and come up with the best proposal.
Junior Seth Suida awed the Friday night lights crowd and his junior girlfriend Annabelle Bilby on Sept. 5, with a personalized proposal and many decorated signs.
“I didn’t see it coming at first. Before it happened we were taking a photo together and when that was happening, my dad was looking in the background, and I was like OK something’s going on,” Bilby said.
Suida described that a lot of effort went into the logistics, ensuring the proposal would run smoothly.
“There was a lot of planning leading into it with her friends and teammates before the game. Mrs. Lyp actually let me put the signs and flowers into her car before the game had started so I could keep the surprise hidden. I got her dad involved pretty last minute when I learned he was coming to the game,but there was still lots of communication to make sure everyone was on the right track,” Suida said.
Although HoCo proposals are grand gestures now, DGS graduate of 2005, varsity cheer coach and special services teacher Shannon Lahey had a different experience as a student at DGS.
“They would bring flowers or candy or something like that but there were not a lot of like signs or cheeky messages. We used our lockers back then too so maybe they would stand outside your locker and give you a bouquet of flowers,” Lahey said, “They would just use their words.”
Sometime between 2005, and when special services teacher Michael Paczkowski graduated in 2011, signs and creative proposals started to make their campaign. Paczkowski describes how he asked a girl his freshman year at DGS.
“I’m Mr. Patch by the way and she really liked Sour Patch Kids and obviously people still called me Patch in high school. I ended up surprising her after one of her volleyball matches, and I had a bag of Sour Patch… I taped over the sour and I wrote ‘Homecoming with’ and the Patch was there,” Paczkowski said.
As the years went on, homecoming proposals created a whole new expectation and meaning for high schoolers attending the dance. It serves as an opportunity for someone to show their care and appreciation for their date. Although it was a very stressful moment for Suida, his thoughtfulness and planning paid off.
“Turning around and seeing all my friends were in on it, knowing that he [Suida] cares for me and having all the cheerleaders and my friends rushing around making sure everything looks good. It really feels good knowing that I have all that support from everyone,” Bilby said.
Whether you get asked to the dance by a date, or plan on attending with your friends, show up to the Dancing Through the Decades dance on Saturday, Sept. 20 beginning at 7 p.m.
