By Marian Patterson

As Justin Bieber’s Despacito made the gym floor shake, theater teacher Eric Archilla applied sunblock to his nose and Coach Beth Brown put on her cowboy boots for their emcee performance at the first pep rally as camp councilors of Camp Golden Eagle.

Preparation for the pep rally began weeks ago when Annette Reynolds and senior parents began planning. The parents are responsible for decorations in the gym – from the streamers to the log cabin built on the sophomore and junior side.

“We have a team of senior parents that come up here the night before a pep rally, like they were here at 6 last night, and they do all the decorating and building the structures – just getting everything all set up.” Reynolds said.

Cheerleading Coach Jeff Bivins said the goal behind the pep rallies is to encourage students to attend the game and show school spirit.

“I’m hoping it [the pep rally] helps to build like the school spirit and pump up the teams,” Bivins said. ‘It’s a place for students to come and celebrate the school, not think about academics, spend time with their peers, and just have fun for 45 minutes.”

The pep rallies are also a way to get students interested in joining the clubs involved and possibly encourage them to start their own clubs.

“The goal is to encourage students for next year – like ‘Oh i want to be a part of that,'” Coach Bivins said. “Also I would like to see the students start up other groups that way we can highlight the other talents that our school has.”

Work has already begun on the Straight Out of Richardson pep rally for the game against W.T. White.

“We’ve already started work on the next pep rally because it takes a lot of time for the girls [cheerleading] to learn, for the teams to get new material, and to set up the gym.” Reynolds said.