MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Faculty and students at Morgantown High School are ready to celebrate another homecoming with an extended weekend’s worth of festivities.
Traditional ceremonies for the Mohigans will begin on Thursday ahead of the homecoming game against Parkersburg South that will take place at Pony Lewis Field on Friday starting at 7 p.m. Morgantown High School Principal Paul Mihalko expressed excitement for the festivities, where Mohigan alumni from decades past, along with thousands of students currently attending MHS, will show off their school spirit with activities that will take place throughout the week.
“We do class competitions where we raise funds and goods for our ‘Mohigans Helping Mohigans’ organization here, as much as it’s fun, we also want to make it a service-oriented, let’s-be-kind kind of thing to our fellow students as well,” said Mihalko.
According to MHS school officials, the parade will officially step off on High Street at 6:00 p.m., where Mohigans young and old will be joined by the Morgantown community. The event will be hosted by the Morgantown High School Band, where they will perform in front of thousands of people lined up on High Street. Band Director Lorne Hyskell added that traffic patterns will be changed about an hour before the start of the parade, so anyone who wishes to attend should try to get there before 5 p.m. to avoid getting stuck in traffic.
“They’ll start shutting the streets down before the parade, and we’ll start staging groups at 5:30 at the top of High Street,” said Hyskell. “We’ll have a couple of vehicles and floats with the homecoming court and some other organizations, we’ll (also) have various clubs from Morgantown High featured that will be walking down the streets with some banners that they made.”
On Friday and Saturday, homecoming festivities will take place before and after kickoff of the football game against Parkersburg South. At halftime, the band will be on the field at the same time as the coronation of the homecoming king and queen takes place, where they will perform the Morgantown High School alma mater as well as the pep song before closing out the night with a postgame performance at Pony Lewis Field. The homecoming dance will take place on Saturday, with close to 1,000 students expected to be in attendance.
“We are upwards of over 1,000 kids coming to the dance, it’s a huge event,” said Mihalko. “Alexis George puts on a great event, and our kids really enjoy being able to have that kind of fun right here in the building with their friends.”
For Morgantown High School, homecoming weekend is considered an opportunity to not only celebrate Mohigan school spirit but also to show the growth the school has experienced over the years while remaining active in the local community. This includes close to a dozen local organizations that will participate in the Morgantown High School Homecoming Parade as well as the charitable causes that will be supported with the help of the homecoming class contests, following similar efforts such as the widely popular Mohigan Idol. With thousands of Mohigans, both past and present, expected to be at Morgantown High School this weekend, school officials can’t wait to celebrate with the community.
“They love this school, and to see them come back, see all of the things that they’re able to see, embedding that tradition in our new classes here in Morgantown High too,” said Mihalko. “It just carries that along in our community atmosphere.”