In preparing for Sayreville High’s much anticipated autumn Pep Rally, Mr. Howard – AP U.S. History I teacher and the teacher supervisor for the Student Council stepped forward to offer commentary on the upcoming event, voicing an intent to promote a larger sense of school unity rather than merely featuring the school’s athletics department, talented though they may be. Rather, Mr. Howard went on to elaborate, unity among the school’s clubs would be put on display – as illustrated by the signs representing each club held proudly in the stands during the event.

As has been Sayreville tradition, students are placed in competition by grade level – the Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors, each vying for success in a variety of different activities and games, shifted and amended each year with new activities. While Mr. Howard alluded to a great deal of scrapped events – including a potential cart or scooter race that we here at Echo Lites certainly hope may make a more successful comeback in the future – students enjoyed the Pep Rally itself, and it proved to live up to the high expectations the Student Council set for itself in hosting the event.

Following a series of introductions, the event opened with Sayreville’s dedicated cheerleaders to ready the crowd for the oncoming events – impressing the audience with feats of gymnastic athleticism before the competitions truly began. Competitions opened with bobbing for apples, a popular recurring event, followed closely by a similarly themed event in the form of the Pie Eating Contest. Showcasing the athletes was the Field Goal Contest, giving a competitor from each grade a time limit of 45 seconds to score as many points as possible before transitioning into the Relay Race. Compared to previous years, this Relay Race has been more chaotic than ever before – a combination of a 3-legged race, an eggs on spoons race, a piggyback race, and a 50 yard sprint all slated as potential events for the competition.

The final event, however, was a true-to-form Sayreville tradition: the Tug-o-War, sectioning the grades off into a tourney style competition in which two pairs of grades compete before the winners compete for the final victory of the event. This event proved a closer race than ever, as did the competition as a whole – but unfortunately, as enjoyable as this event was for the audience and competitors alike, this event also posed some complications for an unlucky grade of students. While the Junior class made it into the finals of this event, it ended in a less than satisfying disqualification as extra competitors from other grades entered from the sidelines to aid the Juniors, going against the rules of the game, and placing the Juniors in dead last this season. However, while some may have left the event with a sour taste in their mouth, the response to the event was overwhelmingly positive, and judging by Mr. Howard’s implications regarding unused events, leaves Sayreville more excited than ever for future pep rallies.