'Zombie Walk' Theme for High School Homecoming

There are two major events in a high school student’s year – and one of them is this weekend.

The Homecoming will be held on Friday (tomorrow) and Saturday.

Tomorrow's events include: a Friday afternoon on-campus rally and a police-escorted parade to the Plaza; and a 7:30 p.m. against Sebastopol’s Analy High.

On Saturday, a Homecoming Dance is set for .

The theme this year is “Night of the Living Dead,” a pop culture trend of zombies and the end-of-the-world scenario for 2012. If this doesn’t sound like your own homecoming theme, blame the times, not the students.

“It’s more theatrical than political,” said Lewis Lancaster, art teacher and senior class administrator.

Associated Student Body advisor John Camp, whose “zero period” leadership class convenes at 7:10 each morning, has been trying to return the Homecoming Parade to Healdsburg since he became advisor 3 ½ years ago.

“We haven’t done this parade since 2001,” said Publicity Commissioner Haily Roehrick, “But Mr. Camp really wanted to do this, so we started as soon as classes began [Aug. 17].”  

Roehrick has been doing her job – hitting the phones and email to get publicity on short notice for this parade, the first of its kind in 10 years.

“If we had applied 90 days in advance the city said we could have had a walking parade,”  the 17-year old senior said.

Instead, paperwork was submitted about a month ago, then lost by the HUSD in their office move (to the HHS campus, where the studios used to be).

The decided only this week that it was too late to close off streets for a full walking parade, and there will instead be an 8 MPH “rolling escort” parade starting at the school campus at about 3:45 p.m., or “whenever the police cars get here,” said ASB adviser  Camp.

School organization and class-sponsored floats in the parade are not to exceed 15 feet in length. The truck-mounted floats will emphasize the spirit of the Greyhounds and the Homecoming theme, and the nominated "Homecoming royalty" will be waving from cars donated by

The parade will proceed down Fitch Street from the high school, turn down Piper to Center, then continue on Matheson to circle the , where the truck floats will be judged.

At the Plaza, sporting event announcer will announce the parade, following which the school’s Ballet Folklorico will perform from the gazebo. The Healdsburg High School band concludes the Plaza events.

Winners of the Homecoming royalty and the float judging will be announced at the varsity football game at , when the Greyhounds (4 wins to 1 loss) take on the Analy Tigers (3-2).

Depending on the condition of the field, winning floats may get one more chance to show off  to the parents and students of Healdsburg High.

The Homecoming Dance will be held on Saturday night, from 7:30 – 10 p.m., at the .

“The City has been really, really nice to allow use of the Villa this year,” emphasized Camp.

Decorations will begin about midday, and the Villa should be transformed by eerie décor in keeping with the theme. “DJ Nina” will provide the dance tracks – she doubles as campus supervisor (and parent of an 11-th grader) Nina Adams.

And that other major event in the high school student year? It falls on June 1, 2012 – Graduation Day.

Let's hope our students don't do the zombie walk all year long!