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Riverbank Fall Homecoming Comes To An Exciting Close
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Riverbank’s football Homecoming King and Queen celebrate the beginning of their reign at the end of halftime activities last Friday at the Angelo Novi Stadium on the RHS campus. Nicholas (Nico) Pulido and Areli Zamora received the honor in this year’s voting. Ric McGinnis/The News

This past week was Riverbank High School’s Homecoming Week that was filled with many activities including lunch time activities, float creations, a Powder Puff game, Homecoming game, royalty, and a colorful energetic parade.

The week concluded with the JV and varsity football games on Friday night, along with the crowning of its Homecoming King and Queen during halftime activities. Nicholas (Nico) Pulido and Areli Zamora received the royalty honors just before a ‘color toss’ in a portion of the stands and the resumption of the football game that night.

This was RHS Principal Greg Diaz’s first time in his role for fall homecoming 2019-20 and to stir up even more excitement they invited Cardozo Middle School (CMS) students to join the party as they once had in the past.

“I was happy with the level of student participation this year,” stated Diaz. “Although ideally all students would participate in some capacity, the engagement we had was awesome. I walked into our art classroom on Thursday evening about 8:30 p.m. and there were probably 40 students working on projects for the floats. It was great to see. Ray Perez, our Leadership teacher, and his students were absolutely amazing planning this year’s homecoming.”

The theme for this year’s fall homecoming was “Bruins Got Game” so each class was given a game and each day during the week had character or color themed dress days. This made Monday the most participated in day during homecoming week as it was sport your pajamas or dress up as a Candyland character.

“Definitely pajama day,” Diaz expressed was the most popular dress day. “Any time we have a valid excuse to come to school with blankets and slippers is always a crowd pleaser.”

The leadership class planned fall homecoming festivities under the direction of Perez including the lunch time activities like the pie eating contest and tug-o-war.

“For me personally, the entire week was the highlight,” added Diaz. “From seeing the students planning and building the floats, to the Powder Puff game, which had over 300 spectators in the stands, the rally, the parade, and then the football game on Friday night, it was just a special week.”

The pies for the eating contest were filled with canned whipped cream and had treats that were hidden under the cream like gummy worms.

Each class had a float representing them that stuck to the theme they were given like the Candyland for freshmen, Jumanji for sophomores, Super Mario Brothers for juniors, and the seniors with Monopoly that even had one student that went to ‘jail.’ The parade participants passed out some candy to the spectators which got the middle school students on their feet.

“I was pleased with the parade,” expressed Diaz. “It was much shorter in terms of time than we had anticipated, but it was a blast. Again, it gave us an idea of what direction we would like to take the event in the future. It was great to have the CMS students lining the streets. Mr. Bizzini, principal at CMS, and I came up with the idea the week before as we were traveling home from a conference.”

He said that “historically, the parade hasn’t started until after the CMS students have been released for the day, so we decided to tweak our bell schedules to make it happen earlier in the day. We also had to change the route simply because the way the floats were constructed, the sides we wanted to display to the CMS students would’ve been facing the wrong way had we kept it as usual. I really need to thank Mr. Bizzini and the CMS staff for agreeing to this change. I hope that we can plan to have both California Avenue and Mesa Verde students attend the event next year.”

The Grand Marshal this year was James Boardman, a science teacher at the high school. He kicked off the parade on Friday afternoon. Diaz added that the class advisors, staff like Monte Wood, Ashley Estaque, Lezlie Acker, Cory Casteel, and all that assisted the students last week were “vital to last week’s success.”

The 2019-20 Fall Homecoming is in the books with another successful and fun week for students and staff.

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Avast, matey! There be pirates invading the football field last Friday. No danger, though, as it was merely the RHS Guard Squad, performing at halftime, along with the Marching Band playing for the large Homecoming crowd. Ric McGinnis/The News
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Immediately following the coronation of this year’s football Homecoming King and Queen, RHS students held a celebration of their own in a portion of the grandstand seating. They ‘shared’ a color toss in a section of the seats, similar to the Color Runs formerly held by the city Parks and Recreation Department. Ric McGinnis/The News