By Richard Taylor
A week-long celebration of island culture, school support and team spirit and kicks off today (Oct. 16) with the yearly Spirit Week for Homecoming at Ocracoke School.
During the week, students and staff are encouraged to wear costumes and dress up for the theme of the day. A Homecoming Court and sports events round out the week.
Spirit Week has been a regular occurrence at Ocracoke School for decades.
“We have homecoming events like all schools,” said Principal Leslie Cole. “For Spirit Week, I encourage everyone to participate on at least one day. It’s a fun week for the school and attendance is high. We have a great community week. Everyone’s invited.”
Themes celebrated this week include:
Monday, Oct.16 — Pajama Day. Students and encouraged to wear their pajamas to school. The school dress code still applies, but for one day during the year, participants don’t have to worry about getting “dressed” after they roll out of bed.
Tuesday, Oct. 17— Hat Day or Opposites Day. Participants may wear their favorite hat, or dress as their opposite: students can dress as teachers; teachers as students; girls can dress as boys; boys as girls; or students can wear clothes inside out and/or backwards.
Wednesday, Oct. 18 — Color Day: elementary students wear red; middle school students wear blue; high school students wear black.
Thursday, Oct. 19 — Jersey Day: students and staff may wear jerseys of their favorite college or professional team.
Friday, Oct. 20 — Dolphin Homecoming Day: Everyone is encouraged to support the Dolphins by wearing Ocracoke Dolphins clothes. “Fear the Pod!” is the sports teams’ slogan featured on sports merchandise.
Other Friday functions include Homecoming Court, with voting in the morning, intrasquad basketball games at 5 p.m. Homecoming Court is at 7 p.m. in the gym followed by a father-son basketball game at 7:45 p.m. Some participating fathers are Ocracoke School alumni.
Other sports events for the week tentatively include a home varsity soccer game vs. Bear Grass at 4 p.m. Tuesday; the Atlantic 6 (1A) Conference high school cross country championships at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at Hatteras; and a home varsity soccer game vs. Hatteras at 4 p.m. Thursday.
Cole noted that schedules for Ocracoke athletics are often tentative and “change all the time,” depending on weather, transportation, the availability of referees and other factors.
