Since 1986, Edmond Memorial High School has chosen a charity and devoted one week of school, known as Swine Week, to raise money for them. This year, the CARE Center, a child advocacy center, was chosen as the recipient. 

To make the event fun and interactive for students, the week is given a theme (voted upon by the students). This year the theme is Pigeo Games. Student Council (Stuco) then votes and decides on a dress up day for each day of the week. 

This year, as many years in the past, Monday sees each grade level wear a different color. Freshmen wear red, Sophomores wear blue, Juniors wear white and Seniors wear pink. As students go through the years they look forward to becoming a Senior and finally being able to wear pink to the opening assembly of Swine Week. This dress up day is a lot of fun and should stay for many years to come.

Another long standing tradition is wearing jerseys on Tuesday. However this rarely has something to do with the theme of Swine Week. Since this year’s theme was Pigeo Games they could have said dress up as your favorite sports video game or something similar in order to tie it back to the theme. This way those that often are unable to wear their jersey’s can still dress up and those that don’t have one can participate in another way. A school dress up day shouldn’t rely on something that expensive, especially since those that don’t dress up can be made fun of for not having enough “school spirit.”

Wednesday is always the day of the Techno assembly where groups from each grade level, all wearing neon colors, make a dance routine and show it off under blacklights for the school to see. The students also dress up in neon clothes in order to light up in the crowds. They (Stuco) titled this day Pacman. Often Pacman and his fellow ghosts are in dull colors, which make it hard to dress up like the characters of this particular video game. Another way to keep the tradition of neon could be dressing up like the game “Splatoon.” Students would splash colors of neon paint onto their shirts and then the dress up day could be better fitted into a video game.

Thursday is the day of the upperclassmen vs. upperclassmen competition. The dress up day chosen was country club (Juniors and Seniors) vs. country (Freshmen and Sophomores). While this is a fun dress up day and everyone could find something to use in order to participate, it doesn’t have anything to do with the theme. If they wanted there to be a day where they could provide two opposite outfits then they could have chosen something to do with games such as board games vs. video games or 2000’s vs. 2010’s games.

The final assembly is usually on Friday and this means that the dress up day assigned is to wear the official Swine Week t-shirt.While this is a great tradition and helps bring a sense of uniformity and togetherness to the last day, some cannot participate due to a lack of funds for the shirt. Dress up days shouldn’t have to involve a certain article of clothing; they should be something that students can put together out of their closet. So, in order to keep the official Swine Week shirt as part of the tradition, I believe there should simply be something added to this day. For example, as part of their final day of Double Wolf Dare Week, Edmond Santa Fe High School’s equivalent of Swine Week, students were encouraged to also wear their pajamas and bring anything but a backpack to carry their school supplies. This simple addition to a dress up day allows for everyone to have a chance of participating without having to spend money on a specific shirt.

Nevertheless, Swine Week is one of the most enjoyable weeks of the school year and it is always exciting to see everyones outfits.

Contact Adeline Gruen [email protected]