The start of a new school year brings about a multitude of excitement: new classes, seeing friends again, and the beginning of school events and activities.

At Ralston Valley, students can look forward to football games, pep rallies, and numerous other functions this fall.

However, the most anticipated event of autumn is most certainly Homecoming.

With the early date of the dance this year, (October 1st), buzz surrounding Homecoming is already at its peak. Student Government started the enthusiasm by putting out the three possible themes for the dance by the first day of school.

The official choices included ‘Drops of Jupiter’, ‘Mario Party’, and ‘Wizard of Oz’.

Needless to say, the options chosen were quite unique from past years, and StuGo members had to think outside the box to create them.

“Towards the end of summer, Student Government got together and we split up into groups and all came up with ideas including spirit day ideas and decoration ideas,” said Junior StuGo representative Morgan Jenkins. “Then, we all presented the different themes and voted on them. The top three were shown to the student body.”

Jenkins was an avid fan of all the options.

“I really like all of the different homecoming themes,” Jenkins said, “because they were so well thought out and all kind of different from each other!”

Ben Kusnetzky (‘18) on the other hand, was relatively indifferent on the matter.

“I think the themes are interesting,” he said, “but they don’t really impact the dance.”

After the choices were shown to the population at RV, the selection process began. Voting for the Homecoming theme was quite different from last year.

Instead of students nominating their favorite during lunch, StuGo put out a Twitter poll to complete the vote.

The decision to switch to an electronic mode was an easy one to make.

“Student Government decided to put the survey on Twitter to allow more people to vote, instead of just finding them at lunch,” Jenkins said. “It also allows more people to learn about StuGo’s social media accounts. It was to get more people involved with StuGo out of school so people could learn more.”

By the third day of school, the survey was closed and the results were complete.

‘Drops of Jupiter’ is the winner, with 46 percent of the total 450 votes. Both ‘Mario Party’ and ‘Wizard of Oz’ finished with 27 percent of the votes.

Kusnetzky was pleased with the final selection and expressed, “I think the right one was picked.”