Students swirled around the back parking lot of the school. With tickets in their hands, they douged around other students, squeezed past long lines, and avoided miscellaneous items (mostly water balloons) that were thrown up in the air. The students, who were dressed as Disney and Pixar characters, had long abandoned the now empty cafeteria for the far more extravagant homecoming tailgate.  

Although many students were skeptical at first, the tailgate was a refreshing change from the normal parade, and it created new excitement for the homecoming game and dance that Cy Falls hasn’t seen for many years. 

“The tailgate is basically all of us coming together and playing games, having fun, and supporting the school,” Halie Cormier (11), said. “It’s a lot of fun out here. There’s multiple different foods and basically each extracurricular activity is showing what they got and how much fun we [can] have out here.”

Students, with their tickets in their hands, started to flock around the different booths buying different ranges of desserts, candies, and other treats. Booths, such as the haunted house, were overflowing with students, who were eager to maximize the amount of time they had during their extended lunch. 

“It was a whole lot of fun,” Cormier said. “I love the multiple different activities that they have, the diversity, the haunted house. Like I enjoyed [the haunted house] the best and sumo wrestlers.  They had a lot of things and it’s a whole bunch of fun. And I very much recommend everybody doing this.”

The tailgate still has a lot to work out before it becomes the perfect activity that everyone in the school enjoys. A lot of clubs that could’ve been involved were not, but it’s important to remember that this is just the first year the tailgate has happened. If the tailgate continues, most likely in the next few years there will be an increase in the number of clubs that actually participate.

“I loved the aspects of the tailgate, but I feel like, even though there were minor groups, some are still missing,” Dakota Griffin (11) said. “Most of the minor clubs did not have a booth. Color Guard and a few others didn’t have a booth and those aspects would have been really cool.”