Pennsbury High School hosted its first homecoming dance in over 20 years after the student council took the initiative to bring back the dance for the class.
Pennsbury is famous nationwide for “The Best Prom In America,” but the school has been missing a homecoming dance for some time. Sammi Leon, a senior and vice president of Pennsbury’s student council, said, “We wanted to do something to bring the school together so we came up with a bunch of different ideas and statistics for a homecoming and then we presented them to the faculty.”
The school had a dance until the early 2000s when it was stopped due to poor attendance, but this year’s dance sold more than 700 tickets to juniors and seniors.
Being the largest high school in Bucks County, Pennsbury houses more than 2,900 students in grades 9 through 12.
“In some cases you’ll hear ‘I don’t know everyone’ or ‘I don’t feel connected,’ so we think having a bigger upper-class dance could unite us and it’s a bonding opportunity,” said Junior Riley Kopceuch, who is student council secretary. “It’s hard to get to know everyone in a large school but when we have this event it makes the school so much stronger.”
David Shermaria, Pennsbury’s new assistant principal since June, backed the student council in the process of returning homecoming.
“The biggest hurdle was a lot of the unknown,” he said. “It’s been 20-plus years so we didn’t know how much excitement the event would bring. But kids are excited to be a part of bringing it back and also being a part of something historical.”
School pride soared through the Falcons’ hallways during spirit week leading up to the homecoming football game on Friday and Saturday’s dance.
Leon talked about the fulfillment student council felt after, “having this opportunity, looking at spirit week and the participation, hearing kids talk about it and then stepping back and realizing ‘Wow I’m a part of this.’”
During Friday’s halftime, the school recognized the homecoming court — Brynne Magee and Charles Wisor; Grace Kean and Noah Rice; Taylor Lewis and Toby Kubitsky; Samantha Centofante and Evan Soriano; Hayden DiFranchi and Jack Elmer, before crowning the king and queen — Wisor and Magee.
“I’m really excited because it’s the first one and for everyone being able to come together for the dance,” Magee said after being crowned.
Also involved in the homecoming planning process were the rest of the student council board — President Sriya Amineni, Historian Michael Lynott, Public Relations Nida Ayub and advisors Lindsey Strauss, Jim Moyer, Courtney De La Pena and Melissa Vitucci.
“Part of the process was being the first one in so long and now that we have some information for the next one we can hopefully bring it to the next level for next year,” Shermaria said.
Friday’s game was also the school’s “Pink Out” to support breast cancer research, alumni night and an “Eagles Takeover,” which included two former Philadelphia Eagles — A.J. Feeley and Jon Runyan — as honorary captains, plus Eagles mascot Swoop, Eagles cheerleaders and the Eagles drum line.
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