As the DJ cuts the crowd at prom, senior Braden Harton struts through the crowd with his friend, senior Nuwelin Dagne. They danced as they were being announced as one of the four couples being nominated for prom king and queen. Harton felt exuberant as he walked down the aisle, being cheered on by friends and classmates. Once they finished introducing the nominees, the crowd was informed that Harton had won king, along with senior Kiana Kleusner, who won queen.
“It was a really big surprise, especially being able to win with Kiana, because we’ve been friends since elementary school,” Harton said.
Many students celebrate by dressing up formally and taking pictures with friends. Throughout the year, we’ve seen some fluidity with the trends. One of them is prom court, which is when the students nominate a group of juniors and seniors to be on court. Then, leading into the week of prom, students vote for the winner and they reveal who wins at the dance.
The court has changed throughout the years depending on who is running. In the past decade, schools have seen more friends running together rather than couples. There are some couples who run, but most of the time, a girl and a guy who are friends run together.
Each year, there’s always a qualm with something, and this year it seemed to be the DJ. A lot of people had strong opinions on how he was very talkative and trying to communicate with the crowd. Harton dismissed the negative opinions on the DJ by explaining that the fun isn’t just in the environment.
“It’s really what you make of it, even if the DJ isn’t great, I think that’s partly your own fault because you need to make your own fun,” Harton said.
This year, amongst many others, junior and senior students participated in going to the dance. Through the years, we’ve seen some pretty consistent trends and some things that are newly emerging. One ongoing example of this has been the color scheme, since prom is during springtime, we usually see a lot of floral patterns and pastel colors. Junior Ella Hellmann has gone to prom the past two years and has noticed the ongoing trends over the past two years.
“With dresses this year, I saw a lot of simple designs but also glittery patterns, but with the colors, I saw a lot of light pastel colors,” Hellmann said.
The attire people wear may not be changing, but we’ve definitely seen a little more diversity in the before prom rituals. For instance, more girls in the past few years have been using bouquets instead of corsages. Now, typically, dance attendees would take pictures with a couple of friends and go out to eat before the dance. This year, senior Eric Beckley expressed how he wants to stop this idea.
“I feel like it’s important to get pictures, but I absolutely hate doing it,” Beckley said. “This year is my first year going to prom at this school, and it just wasn’t the same; it just felt uncomfortable and different from past years [when I went to other schools’ proms].”
Since this will be most seniors’ last prom they will go to, the event felt very different. Considering it’s most of their last big event, they don’t really care what others think because they won’t be in that place anymore.
“I think the level of confidence is [different] because obviously, as a senior, you just don’t care as much because you’re the oldest. Whereas a junior might care more because they still have a year left,” Harton said.
