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Waving from their float, Delaney Johnson ‘26, Sloane Stokley ‘28, and London Dunbar ‘28 lead the crowd in spirit during the Homecoming Parade. The Cheer team energized the audience by interacting with the crowd and throwing out candy.
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Holding up a board decorated with equations, Seniors Haydn Espinoza and Athenna Skevofilax smile during the Homecoming Parade. The basketball team created a math-themed float and tossed candy to the crowd along the route.
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Wearing matching pink wigs and monkey ears, seniors Ava Poursepanj and Caroline Johnson ride on the SunDancers float. The SunDancers decorated their float to match their theme of the song ‘Dance Monkey.’
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Playing their trumpets in unison, juniors Myah Kapavik and Aditi Kodali march with the band during the Homecoming Parade. The band performed numerous songs as they led the procession down the street.
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Striking a pose mid-performance, K-Pop Club members Sanjitha Girish ’27, Bella Wen ’28, Anandi Raj ’27, Diane Kim ’28, and Siya Majumdar ’27 look to the crowd. Sporting matching KCROOKD jerseys to represent their group name, the team performed to popular songs such as ‘ANTIFRAGILE’ by LE SSERAFIM and ‘Gnarly’ by KATSEYE.
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Smiles wide, seniors Lucy Allison, Alexis Hwang, Ava Fakhar, and Luciana Lleverino present their piece. Warrior Pride often performs at pep rallies, giving the dancers extensive experience.
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Lining up a shot, Lemerial Stogner ’26 tosses a T-shirt into the crowd. Many students, parents, future Warriors, and community members made up the audience of the pep rally.
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Standing proud, seniors NamAhn Truong, Liam Lewis, Grace Xiang, and Josh Lee represent the Swim and Dive team. Many sports were given the opportunity to market their next matches at the pep rally.
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Smiling from the back of a car, Ryan Gu ‘26 rides as a member of the homecoming court. He was nominated for Homecoming Nobility and joined the other nominees in the parade tradition.
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Accepting cheers and applause, seniors Audrey Derdeyn, Beck Brenneman, Jackson Bowen, Autumn Jacobs, and Loic Pehrson walk towards the audience. Each Homecoming Court nominee chose friends to escort them down the field at the pep rally.
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Landing on just one hand and foot, Diabolo Club President Sam Yarbrough ’26 completes a difficult trick with his yo-yo. The Diabolo Club, formerly the Chinese Yo-yo club, received many enthusiastic cheers for their performance to songs from the movie ‘KPop Demon Hunters.’
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With his eye trained on the string, Timothy Fan ’26 catches his yo-yo. Each member of the Diabolo Club, formerly the Chinese Yo-yo Club, had a featured moment in the performance to showcase their skills for the crowd.
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Focused, the SunDancers begin their first dance. The group performed to multiple R&B songs, showcasing their distinct dance skills.
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After walking down the 50-yard line, seniors Zeke Brock, Joaquin Garcia, and Elijah Sanchez wait by the sideline. Both Sanchez and Brock escorted Garcia down the field while he was announced as one of the Homecoming Court nominees.
Loud shrieks and bright smiles filled the sidewalks as students and staff participated in the annual Homecoming parade and pep rally on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Various organizations showed off their ornate floats to the eager students, staff, and families crowded in the neighborhoods, throwing candy to the excited onlookers.
The Homecoming parade encouraged students to showcase and represent the various organizations present in school. Themed club floats complete with eye-catching decorations, streamers, and banners rolled down the streets, each a testament to student creativity and life.
“I think my favorite part of making the float was getting everybody together,” International Baccalaureate Student Organization (IBSO) Officer Sofia Granados ‘27. “A lot of different people helped make it and the whole process in general was super fun, especially being on the float and being able to just yell your heart.”
Immediately after school, students began preparing for the festivities in the parking lot, adding last minute tweaks to their floats, dressing up, and stationing themselves in different zones. Student Council (StuCo) members, who plan the parade, pep rally, Homecoming court and nobility, focused on making sure the event went smoothly, holding signs to identify zones where students and floats should be stationed.
“There’s a lot of parts and pieces,” StuCo Senior Vice President Iris Chen said. “It’s obviously really fun to work with a team of people on the committee to make things happen, but it’s a lot of emailing people, making sure everyone’s on board with everything and making sure that they can be where they need to be.”
In accordance with the Homecoming theme “Press Play,” students carefully chose songs and artists representative of their club to base their floats on. Many groups worked in the mornings, after school, and on the weekends leading up to the parade to design lavishly decorated floats, contributing to the parade’s wide success and turnout. Themed floats referenced a wide range of artists, albums, songs, and musicals, from rock ‘n’ roll singer Elvis Presley to the classic film High School Musical.
“[Decorating floats] was really fun,” Emily Carr ‘29 said. “Especially to be working with all the different grade levels when we were working on it. Today, we were in the choir room and practicing, which was really exciting.”
By 6 p.m., students flocked to their floats to begin the neighborhood festivities. Standing on and running alongside the floats, organizations waved at parade attendees while fostering school pride. Students tossed out candy to spectators holding open bags — a delicious annual tradition. Alongside the club floats were floats from feeder elementary and middle schools, including Spicewood Elementary School and Grisham Middle School, packed with younger students eager to participate in the annual show of campus community pride.
“It’s really cool to see how [my] last year of high school [plays out],” Chen said. “I really like it when a lot of clubs try and participate in the floats. It’s really representative of Westwood as a whole since there’s so much club stuff that goes on.”
Parade floats drove past judges, competing for the best float. After the parade came the pep rally, where students and families alike flocked to the Warrior Bowl. The top three floats were announced after the performances. Girls basketball’s High School Musical-themed float came in third place, the International Baccalaureate (IB) program came in second place with their The Duck Song-themed float, and softball were crowned champions with their Elvis Presley-themed float, taking the coveted first prize.
“We did not expect to place [in the] top three at all,” Granados said. “We were really, really hoping for it, but for our first year, our initial reaction was [being] super shocked. A lot of us just wanted to beat basketball and some of the other sports, so an in-school organization [beating] a sport was just really crazy.”
During the pep rally, attendees filled the stands to watch performances and presentations by clubs and teams. Following football’s entrance, the choir began the pep rally by singing The Star-Spangled Banner. Kicking off the festivities, sports captains delivered presentations highlighting athletic achievements, with performances from Warrior Pride and the SunDancers between the exhibitions.
“I really liked the crowd at the parade,” SunDancer Liana Jones ‘28 said. “It was very loud and it was very encouraging. It feels like [there’s] always so much energy, and everybody always has so much fun, so that’s a very supportive environment [and] I feel like I can always do my best.”
Continuing the Homecoming celebration, students prepared and executed their parts of the pep rally exhibition. After sports captain presentations, the school spirit continued with the Diablo Club’s (formerly the Chinese Yo-yo Club) exhibition of three songs from the recently released movie KPop Demon Hunters, eliciting a round of applause and enthusiastic hollers from students.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve used any songs that other people actually know, so we thought this year was a good opportunity to play some familiar songs that the audience would love,” Diablo Club President Samuel Yarbrough ‘26 said. “Performing for a big crowd this early in the year is really exhilarating, and since it’s the first time performing in a long time for pretty much all of us, it almost feels like a brand new experience.”
Continuing the classic experience of school spirit and friendly competition, the pep rally culminated by exciting students for the upcoming Homecoming football game on Friday, Sept. 19, and the Homecoming dance on Saturday, Sept. 27.
“It was a really a positive experience, because a lot of the seniors had never been on a float before, so they were able to just experience that,” Granados said. “We just felt like we were so energetic, [and] how the float was built did not matter because we were screaming our hearts out.”
![Intensely concentrated, seniors Ari June, Christine Kim, and Sahana Suryanarayan collectively paint a portrait of Charli XCX's face. While painting, they shared stories about past experiences and bonded over similar interests in music. "I've definitely grown as a collaborator because in NAHS [National Art Honor Society], you're all growing together as artists and collaborators," Suryanarayan said. "The portrait helped me make room for others while painting."](jpg/edit_2025-09-02_nahsmeeting_sophiacortes-4-1200x800.jpg)
