Doug Creamer: An East homecoming

Published 12:00 am Saturday, October 14, 2017

            I teach at East Davidson and we are in the heart of a good football season. High school football can go through good seasons and building seasons. Naturally, we all like it when the home team is winning. We like it even better when the homecoming game turns out to be a victory. No matter how the game turns out, there is NOTHING like an East Davidson homecoming.

            It all starts the week before as classroom doors begin to get decorated. You start to feel something in the air. Monday begins a week of dress-up. Every year we have pajama day. Have you ever tried to teach sleepy kids in their pajamas how to sell a product? Crazy dress-up continues through Friday, when everybody wears their class colors. By that point school is at a fever pitch of excitement.

            On Friday morning teachers try to teach something to students whose minds are anywhere but the classroom. Late in the morning we head outside for a parade. The firetruck blasts its siren, leading the way. The band comes along, followed by all kinds of floats and the homecoming queen hopefuls. There is a big community turnout for the parade.

            The parade comes to an end in the football stadium, where all the participants pass by the home crowd. The band takes the field and practices the show that they will perform at the big game that night. One might imagine that would be the end, but no, then we report to the gym for a huge pep rally.

            There is only one pep rally in my memory that comes close to what takes place at East. I remember at North Stanly one year a popular English teacher put on a pep rally. He decided to have a funeral for the school spirit, which obviously rises from the dead during the pep rally and whips the students into unimaginable excitement. North Stanly went out to win the football game that night. On a side note, North Stanly appears to be having a great season this year…Go Comets!

            The pep rally at East includes cheers from all the feeder school teams, skits from students and sometimes the faculty, and plenty of cheers from both the JV and varsity cheerleaders. There will be contests between the classes and the faculty that include plenty of laughs and lots of excitement. Then we send the students back to class, in hopes of teaching them something before the band marches through the halls playing the school fight song at end the day…one crazy day!

              I admit I come home drained, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world. The game is exciting to attend, as former students return, the Queen and King are announced, and once again the band performs an awesome program. You hope the home boys can pull off a win, then drive home, and fall in bed absolutely exhausted.

      More than anything I can’t wait to stand before God’s throne and hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come and enter your Father’s rest.” I know I have much more work to faithfully do before that glorious day. What concerns me is that some may miss that grand day because they refuse to accept the free gift of God’s salvation. They refuse to ask Jesus to be their Savior, so they will miss the greatest pep rally of all time. I am praying that their hearts will soften and that they will turn and accept Him into their hearts.