Spirit rallies and pep assemblies have always been the heart and soul of school spirit from middle school all the way through high school. But what do you do when the spirit rallies and pep assemblies die out?

At McHenry Community High School, East and West Campus have begun piloting a new competition between classes to replace the struggling spirit rallies. The competition has been dubbed the Barrel Battle.

The competition features monthly contests organized through the Student Activities Office, with help from Student Council and a few other organizations. In order to win the coveted spirit barrel, each class must compete for points in monthly challenges that they hope will help unite the student classes.

In January, for example, the month’s challenge was based on attendance. The class who missed the least amount of days (which happened to be the freshmen) won points and ice cream. 

The points accumulate and at the end of the year, the class with the most points wins the grand prize. This year’s prize was a field trip to Navy Pier in Chicago.

Senior Samuel Burton is one of the members on the Student Council Spirit Barrel Committee at West Campus and has played a role in decision-making for the prizes. Burton said he has high hopes for the competition.

“I hope that, in the future years, people will realize the kind of set up of what the competitions are and how things are gonna work and start to actually work toward points,” he said. “…I hope it’ll bring the classes together.”

Greg Eiserman, an assistant principal at West Campus, is the advisor for the West Student Spirit Barrel Committee and helped bring this new tradition to the school with hoping of bringing school spirit and community back into the halls.

“There are things we wanted to see that pride in your school was more than just wearing an orange shirt on a Friday in a random month,” Eiserman said. “You show up on time, you’re kind to each other in the hallway, that’s how you build a great culture in your school.”

The administration hopes the Barrel Battle will live on as a new Warrior tradition and unite our schools as one.