On May 6, the energy was high at HHS, as the annual Spirit Day/Night festivities finally arrived for the students. More specifically, the Spirit Day highlights included each grade’s t-shirts, mural, common’s display, and Spirit Night video.

Coming into Spirit Day, the seniors led the way with 9,557 spirit points. They were slightly followed by the juniors and sophomores, who were engaged in a close battle for second place with 8,397 and 8,206 points, respectively. The freshmen began the day with 4,080 points.

As students rushed into school Friday morning, almost all of them were sporting their grade’s spirit night shirt. Freshman Force wore a black shirt with the words “Serving ‘Till 2019’”. The sophomores wore a pink shirt displaying their theme, Sophomore Storytime. The shirt had a castle on the back with a green dragon. Junior Justice had a royal blue shirt with the words “Junior Justice” inside a shape that many recognize as the Superman logo. The back of the shirt had a city skyline with the phrase “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the class of 2017!” Senior Sightseers wore a light green shirt with a camera on the front. The back of the shirt had a pole with arrows pointing in different directions, symbolizing all of the places the class of 2016 will go after high school.

For the shirt, the juniors came in first, adding 1,600 points to their total. They were followed by the freshmen, whose shirt with camouflage lettering helped add 1,200 points to their score. The seniors got third place, and the sophomores fourth, racking up 800 and 400 points, respectively.

Each grade also had their commons display set up in the commons for the school to view. The freshmen’s display was a recruitment booth, which came in fourth place for the category. The sophomores got second place for their display, showing a clean library with story books all about. In third place, the juniors were able to put together the bedroom that any superhero fan would dream of, with Batman sheets and Marvel posters. The display that won first place was that of the seniors, who put together different sites to see around the world. There were flags from many different countries, and monuments such as the Eiffel Tower or the Big Ben clock in England.

One of the biggest highlights of Spirit Day for many students is viewing the Spirit Night videos that each grade prepared. The class of 2017 won first place for the third straight year, with this year’s video being more serious in tone. It followed the story of high schooler JJ (Danny Kozimbo) who is called upon to defeat the Joker (Grant Gibbs), who recently escaped prison. The Junior Justice video received praise from people across all grades, and teachers across the school.

The senior took second place for video, with their film starring Ben Trybulski, Andrew Fox, and Elias Ku. They were portrayed to be aliens, visiting and exploring Hillsborough for the very first time.

Freshman Force was able to take third place for their video of the freshmen trying to defeat the seniors who run the school. Edited by Joey Dunphey, the video displayed some advanced technical features, such as displaying a character as a hologram.

In fourth place, Sophomore Storytime comprised a video of a father (Matt Kuc) traveling into a world of book characters to defeat an evil witch who was changing the stories.

Lastly, all of the artists put their talents on display while painting their grade’s mural. The seniors’ mural took home the grand prize, as it showed a map of the world with different sights to see. The juniors painted a mural that looked like different Marvel and DC comics. One of the comicbooks on the mural was titled “Junior Justice”, the Class of 2017 ‘s theme this year.

Coming in third place for the mural was the class of 2019. Their Freshman Force mural showed an army of soldiers lined up in a formation. The sophomores earned fourth place for their mural, which displayed a series of story book characters.

As students exited the building that afternoon, all of HHS was filled with energy and demonstrated lots of school spirit.