At Cal High, the month leading up to Homecoming is a vibrant and colorful rush of festivities and excitement. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of the upcoming event on campus; every classroom buzzes with talk about their plans and hopes for both the blitz of activity in the days leading up to Homecoming and for the actual event itself. So, without further ado, let’s delve into what students are so excited about here at Cal!
Hoco Court:
For Homecoming Court at Cal this year, the system was as follows–
- From an initial open pool of applicants, students could pick their top 20 members on September 22nd.
- These results were announced on September 26th.
- From there, on October 6th, students picked their top 16 members of HOCO court.
- These results were announced on October 10th.
- On October 20th, students picked their top 10 contenders for homecoming court.
- The people who rose the ranks to be announced as the top 10 on October 23rd are as follows…
- Matthew Corvera
- Jeremy Dayton
- Cyril Mella
- Che Ramirez
- Gerardo Uribe
- Daniela Blanco
- Emily Navarro
- Abigail Padilla
- Allyson Prillwitz
- Riley Rocha
Ultimately, the competition for homecoming king and queen was highly competitive. In an attempt to gain leverage amongst the student body, a variety of different approaches were developed as October 28th approached, which is when the final vote was to be made on who would ultimately take it all. Let’s take a look at some of these notable campaigns…
For King:
- Gerardo Uribe
- Initially, Gerardo didn’t present himself as a major candidate for homecoming court.
- However, as the days went by, his humble approach and his focus on representing the true nature of students at Cal High quickly gained him popularity in the elections; he came to establish himself as a dark horse candidate.
- His advertising consisted mainly of plays off of funny TikTok edits, which helped him stand out from the crowd.
- Jeremy Dayton
- Jeremy took a strong approach to his campaigning from the get-go, leveraging his popularity from his involvement in various activities at Cal in order to quickly establish a foundation for success.
- One particular example of an activity Jeremy is involved in is the varsity basketball team, where he helped his team to a victory over the rest of the CIF Southern Section.
- He made significant use of this involvement in his advertising, wherein he showed himself leading on the court.
- Che Ramirez
- Che took a variety of approaches to advertising, all of them being quite successful.
- In his early days of campaigning, Che took a creative approach and made various collages in his name, as well as collaborated with others in the court to collectively gain popularity in the election.
- In addition to this, in his later days of campaigning, he made a video of himself as king.
- Jesse Ramirez
- Jesse, along with his partner Abbie Padilla, was an overall powerhouse of popularity in this homecoming court.
- Jesse is the senior class president, Abbie is the president of ASB.
- Making use of high-quality edits starring them together, they overall shone through as quality candidates for HOCO king and queen.
For Queen:
- Abbie Padilla
- As previously mentioned, she campaigned quite deftly alongside her partner Jesse, making a big name for herself as the final election to determine homecoming king and queen approached.
- Daniela Blanco
- Daniela also took the smart approach of leveraging other candidates’ bases to her own advantage, working closely with Cyril Mella in order to gain more votes.
- Allyson Prillwitz
- Together, she and Matthew Corvera made it to top 10 in HOCO court, aiming to influence her audience via less grandiose but repeated appeals to support her.
- This was also the strategy used by Riley Rocha and Emily Navarro.
Homecoming Proposals
As homecoming approaches, everyone wants to either invite a date to the dance or receive an invitation. And at Cal, this attitude has led to an outpouring of public support to anyone who pops the question, “Will you go to Homecoming with me?” Overwhelmingly, the answer to that question is a resounding “Yes!”, which has led to moving public displays, such as the whole small quad cheering for a boy accepted to homecoming, who described the experience as being, “…one of the happiest moments in my life!”
General Homecoming Information
The homecoming theme this year took significant inspiration from the Mexican holiday of Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Fitting with this theme, the event is being held the day after Halloween, which also has its roots in honoring the dead. This will likely lead to a highly unique homecoming relative to other schools in the district and at large, which only boosts the sheer quality of the event. New and elaborate costumes will likely be worn, the
likes of which we have never seen before at Cal High. These costumes will likely include face paint to represent calaveras and more traditional Mexican dress compared to all past homecomings held by the school in the past.
However, there is one thing consistent of all homecomings recently held by Cal High, and that is their location. The event will be held from 7:00PM – 11:00PM at Fullerton Airport Hangar 21 South (3815 West Commonwealth Avenue). All tickets initially started at $85 with ASB, and $100 without, with the price steadily rising to $115 by October 29th, the last day to buy tickets.
