Starting off Homecoming week, the high schoolers dressed up as their favorite celebrities. The students came up with creative ideas to try and win as many points as possible for the chance to win the spirit stick later in the week. In our opinion, Bo Hanson, dressed as Marshmallow, and Ellie Janetka, dressed as Audrey Hepburn, were our favorites. On Tuesday, the Pointers brought back their childhood memories by dressing up as Disney characters. The duo of Leyton Bowers and Anthony Luu were our top picks with them dressing up Carl and Russel from the movie Up. Wednesday came along and the students dressed up as their class themes for the overall theme “Out of this World.”

Freshman: asteroids 

Sophomores: rockets 

Juniors: aliens 

Seniors: astronauts

Sophomore Alex Ross had our favorite costume going all out in a rocket costume. Next, Thursday’s dress-up day was class color, in which students thought out of the box and created outfits full of their class color. 

Freshman: green  

Sophomores: pink

Juniors: purple

Seniors: black 

Finally, wrapping up the week on Friday was Pointer Spirit day!

A few weeks ago students were given a form to vote for who they wanted on Homecoming court. Each grade got to vote for two female representatives from their grade, as well as three senior queen candidates. For the first time ever in Mineral Point history, a homecoming king candidate was voted for. Excitement was prominent in the air with anticipation for who was going to be elected to court and for the upcoming Homecoming week. A few days later the court was announced:

Freshman Representatives: Ally Baeher and Ella Kroll 

Sophomore Representatives: Elin Bowers and Bre Goninen 

Junior Representative: Mckenzie Aurit and Kylie Rule

Senior Representatives: Callie Peirce and Blair Waters

Everyone was on their toes waiting to find out who the Homecoming Queen and King candidates were. Queen candidates were Ella Chambers, Mallory Lindsey, and Kennedy Smith. King candidates were Bo Hanson, Ross Lindsey, and Trapper Nafzger. Thrilling screams could be heard from the classrooms because of the exciting news. Senior boys on court were fall athletes who played a sport during both Junior and Senior year.  

Students finally voted for the Homecoming Queen and King on Thursday, September 30th in school. The ballots were counted up and announced later that night at the pep rally.

Thursday afternoon, the girls went head to head on one of the fan favorites, Powderpuff football. In the first matchup, the Freshmen took on the Juniors, and the upperclassmen defeated the lowerclassmen advancing the championship. While the Freshmen and Juniors were playing, the Seniors took on the Sophomores, blowing them out of the water, advancing to the championship to take on the Juniors. Starting with the 3rd and 4th place matchup, the Sophomores defeated the Freshmen Finally, in the upperclassmen battle, the Seniors edged out the juniors 10-9 winning and gaining 20 points, leaving the Juniors trailing with 15 points. Although it was a very hot day, Powderpuff was the event to watch!

Thursday was also a big day for the students, due to the fact that float building occurred. In the morning, every grade level was located in different spots around the school. They spent the majority of their morning building these floats for the parade which would take place later in the evening. The overall winner of float building was the Juniors, gaining 50 points, the Sophomores came in second, Seniors came in third, and the Freshmen came in last. The new addition to students designing class banners associated with their themes brought a new way to gain points. Juniors took 1st place once again with Seniors following in 2nd, Freshmen in 3rd, and Sophomores in last.

Thursday evening, Pointer Nation had its very own homecoming parade. The pep rally then occurred on Thursday night after the parade on the football field. Some of the senior boys contributed to the lighting of the MP for the bonfire, a unique tradition in Mineral Point. Following the lighting of the MP, court members walked across the football field in front of all the Pointer fans in preparation for the announcement of the King and Queen. The following is each court member and how they were paired:

Freshmen representative: Ally Baehler escorted by soccer players Hayden Bakken and Jared Wedig 

Freshman representative: Ella Kroll escorted by football players Tanner Goninen and Kolbi Carey

Sophomore representative: Elin Bowers escorted by soccer players Drew Hottenstein and Miles Houtakker

Sophomore representative: Breanna Goninen escorted by football players Leyten Bowers and Dominik Mcvay

Junior representative: McKenzie Aurit escorted by football player Joah Filardo 

Junior representative: Kylie Rule escorted by football player Brett Roberts 

Senior representative: Callie Pierce escorted by football player Bodie Bossert 

Senior representative: Blair Watters escorted by football player Owen Ward 

Queen Candidate: Ella Chambers escorted by King Candidate Ross Lindsey  

Queen Candidate: Mallory Lindsey escorted by King Candidate Bo Hanson 

Queen Candidate: Kennedy Smith escorted by King Candidate Trapper Nafzger 

The Blue Crew announcers for the pep rally were Delaney Ross, Jayda Sudmeier, and Jade Nodolf. After the court members walked out, Head football coach Justin Leonard announced our first-ever Homecoming King, Trapper Nafzger. Trapper then revealed the class of 2022 Homecoming Queen, Ella Chambers. We would like to congratulate both Trapper and Ella on this accomplishment. Following the announcement, all fall sports coaches gave a speech on their teams’ progress this year including the soccer, football, cross country, cheerleading, and volleyball teams. 2011 graduate Tucker Pittz spoke at the pep rally reminding students to take everything in and make memories in high school. Next in line was the Senior parent skit. Based on the crowd’s cheers, the volleyball parents took home the win, selling the crowd on the well-known song “Jump Around” by House of Pain. Ending the night, Mikey Mikrut and his band played for what was called a “pre homecoming.” Friday afternoon, the students held their very own pep rally to announce the winners of the spirit stick. During that time, they competed in more games as a last chance to earn more points. The Spirit Award was given out to two Seniors for their immense amount of Pointer Spirit. Grace Engels was crowned as Spirit Queen and Bo Hanson as Spirit King, congratulations to both. Finally, the spirit stick was given out to the Seniors for their Pointer spirit throughout homecoming week! 

Starting off the week, the JV football team took on the Lancaster Flying Arrows. They defeated the Flying Arrows, winning the game with a score of 29-14. The JV and Varsity Pointer volleyball teams traveled down to Cuba City for the ultimate rematch. The JV lost all three sets but showed an immense amount of improvement from the first matchup. The Varsity girls took on the Cubans in an exciting matchup. The gym was erupting with Pointer fans cheering on our girls. However, they ended up losing 3-2 but played their hearts out with every last ounce of energy. Finally, the Pointer football team went headfirst into the Homecoming game against the Parkview Vikings. The Pointers blew the Vikings out of the water, winning 66-0, a perfect homecoming game to watch. The Mineral Point High School Marching Band performed their field show, which featured songs from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s The Phantom of the Opera, during halftime. The trumpet solos were played by Abel Logue and Ellie Janetka. The Dodge-Point united cross country girls had a meet in Platteville on Saturday in which they ended up getting 2nd in. A tremendous job to all the students participating in sports this week and good luck the rest of the season!

Ending the week off was the dance and grand march on Saturday. The grand march occurred at 8:30 Saturday night where the members of the court walked out in front of the crowd. After that, the dance party began. Students danced the rest of the night away enjoying every minute of it. A big shout out to Mrs. Staver for being the best DJ out there. 

Overall, homecoming week was a blast and for sure one to remember! Thank you to everyone who made it possible.

By: Ella Kroll and Ally Baehler