Did you know that MECA had its Homecoming Dance on October 3rd? ASB worked hard to make this dance a night to remember.
Nate Slaymaker, MECA’s principal, said, “Homecoming is one of the events that is student-run and staff-supervised. ASB is in charge of all of the aspects of Homecoming.”
MECA ASB students have worked tirelessly to make this event happen, and their hard work has paid off. Last year was MECA’s first Homecoming dance. It brought more excitement to students because they were able to do the Homecoming proposals, when in previous years it was just a Back to School Dance.
“It was fun, but it was just an event…but now I feel like Homecoming is…[more] formal since a lot of students will do the whole process of getting ready,” said Vice President of ASB Katelyn Chung.
Deciding the theme takes ASB a long time, but they finally landed on this year’s theme after more than a month of planning. Chung’s main job was to plan Homecoming, make sure that MECA’s Academic Booster Club donated snacks, and create the itinerary for the night. This included when the HOCO court winners would be announced and when the students and staff would arrive.
Chung said, “We wanted to do a fairytale theme for HOCO, so I searched online and I saw that some schools did ‘Once Upon A Time’ and from that, MECA created,¨‘Once Upon A HOCO’ …to tie in the Homecoming theme in that [idea].”
ASB President Lauryn Marin agreed with Chung.“Once Upon A Time is just a good introduction for the freshman…and it’s a really good fairytale ending for all the seniors as well.”
This year, the decorations were also changed, as ASB decided to invest in high-quality supplies, creating a suitable workaround for this dance and future ones as well.
“Instead of decorating the walls with paper how we used to do it, we’re using drapes instead just to give it more of a formal dance kind of feel,” Chung said.

Through learning from previous dances, those in the planning committee have dedicated themselves to changing the things homecoming seemed to lack. Another thing that has been added to Homecoming this year is the Homecoming court.
“We’re also doing a Homecoming Court this year. This is different from last year, when we just had the Homecoming dance, no court.” Chung said.
The Homecoming Court is made up of seniors and juniors. Seniors ran for the king and queen of Homecoming, and juniors ran for the prince and princess.
Marin oversaw the finance committee who made the purchase orders to make sure that ASB had the materials for the decorations. She oversaw the publicity and made sure that ASB’s ideas and the way that they did things fell into guidelines for MECA.
“Lauryn set up the entire Homecoming court nomination system and voting system…she’s also the one who counted all of the ballots for voting.” Chung said.
Gabriel Nichols, the ASB advisor, has been working alongside the members of ASB, playing a crucial part in balancing their ideas.
“Mr. Nichols is definitely more involved in the planning of when HOCO is going to happen, where HOCO is going to happen, and how we are going to do it. He makes sure that everything is school appropriate.” Chung said.
Another new addition to HOCO was the Homecoming proposal contest.
“The proposal contest was a contest to see who could have the most creative proposal to the homecoming dance. The prize was a free HOCO ticket.” Nichols said.
Students made colorful posters that they used to ask their friends or partners to HOCO. Then, they were able to submit a recording of their proposal to the MECA_ASB Instagram account for a chance to win.
“I’m really trying to…just show how much hard work and dedication that ASB puts into it. If people put into it, you’ll get a lot out of it,” said Marin.