Homecoming at Edina High School is a grand affair. People often ask in exciting ways, spend way more than they wanted to on a party bus, and use enough gel/spray to give their hair a nice plastic feel. What’s more, it’s a formal dance and everyone votes for a Homecoming King and Queen. The music comes from a DJ and it usually consists of the most popular songs on the music charts for the past month. All these traditions are what makes homecoming (or “HC” as they say in the hallways), what it is for EHS.

However, homecoming is not the same outside the bubble.

Many schools have an informal homecoming, such as South High School in Minneapolis. According to Eva McCauley, a senior at South, no one really goes with dates, they just go as a big group of friends. They also have “royalties” for every grade. “I think it’s something like duke and duchess, lord and lady, prince and princess, and king and queen” remarked McCauley on the subject.

Some schools have a theme tradition. At St. Paul Academy homecoming constitutes as an annual toga dance. According to Sela Patterson, a senior at SPA, many fall sports teams go together as a group and wear matching togas.

At EHS the dancing goes from jumping around to grinding, but it doesn’t usually cross the line. Apparently that is not the case at all schools. At St. Paul’s Central High School, Senior Elly Voigt remarked, “The theme equals grinding…it turns into one big group and everyone sweats on each other…. Pretty much you just shake your booty…. People get really into it and you’re kind of grinding on like five people at once because everyone is so close together.” Sometimes it gets so out of hand that the teachers get involved, “A fun tradition is that teachers spray the giant grinding masses with water guns because they can’t control us” added Voigt.