To the editor:
Perry High School would like to thank all of those that made the 2016 Homecoming week a great success at PHS.
As other communities have struggled with challenging behaviors in their communities during homecoming, our community can be very proud of what has been done by our students in the community and with many community members.
PHS would like to thank the Perry Chamber of Commerce for inviting us to the parade, especially Bob Wilson and David Wright. The success of the parade can be attributed not only to the Chamber but also to the many volunteers and businesses that supervised and sponsored float building, the line up of the parade and all of the activities downtown.
The week actually starts out the previous Friday, when the homecoming court is named. Monday we have a dress up day as well as Tuesday. On Wednesday we have our annual volunteer day in the community, and this year more than 550 students from PHS went into our community and gave back.
The students and faculty performed many tasks, such as a cleanup of Iowa Highway 141, working with homes that needed help with compliance issues from the city, going into the elderly housing homes and volunteering, cleaning the public library, painting at the elementary school and our biggest project — with more than 100 students — working at the Habitat for Humanity projects in town. We ended Wednesday with a cookout for all of our students.
The parade, as stated before, was a huge success, and it started at 6 p.m. and finished in the downtown area, where the football team autographed posters.
Thursday brought another dress up day and a home cross country meet. The weather was perfect, and this carried over to the coronation ceremony and bonfire that night.
Friday was game day in the afternoon and, of course, the big game followed by the dance that night, which ran from 10 p.m. until 1 a.m. This ended a very long and exciting week, organized from the school side by Brenda Mintun and all of our PHS faculty, and they did a terrific job.
PHS is extremely fortunate to have a community that cares about it so much. The Chamber and the businesses that belong to it continually show support to our students and our school district.
Our community can be very proud of the way our students represent us in the community, with over 3,000 hours donated in one day to the community. Again, while other schools struggle with homecoming week, our students show community pride.
Thank you for everything you do to make our school district a great one.
Dan Marburger, PHS Principal
Perry
A great job was done by everyone, and the students need to be commended for all the work that they did. I hope homecoming will continue to be as successful in the years to come, and this year is a good example of all that was done. Congratulations to the students and everyone else involved!