The 2025 school year kicked off with excitement. On Friday, August 15, Heritage High School took advantage of the end of summer to organize the most anticipated event of the new school year: The Welcome Back Dance, a dance that brought together loads of people this year in the gymnasium, with a mixture of laughter, music, and sweat!
Heritage students said that this year was crazy. Josie Hoffman ‘26, “It was really fun this year since I’m a senior, all the years have been fun but this was the best because I knew a lot of people.”
But not just the seniors enjoyed this dance, Dani Garcia ‘27, a Spanish exchange student, shared “ …in Spain I was told that American parties are not as good as Spanish ones so I wasn’t expecting a huge party, but when I arrived I was so surprised, there were a lot of people and the music was so loud, and I had a great time.”
The Welcome Back Dance invites students to come dressed in costume. According to Garcia, she prepared a last minute costume. She was a construction worker and saw a lot of those at the party, and stated that you can find any type of costume. And Hoffman agrees, “Any costume like a job or character from movies or shows – some years you can even find fast food like Chipotle. And this year there was a Jesus.”
Last year, it was so hot that the fire alarm went off. Josie states, “…it was definitely hotter and sweatier this year, but I think the fire alarm didn’t sound because of the new air conditioning.”
When there is a dance, there is obviously music. Dani and Josie both agree that the music was really fun to dance to, they mixed modern music with 2010 classics to add a nostalgic touch. So, we can say that the DJ was on fire, they mixed some really good songs and everyone enjoyed it!
Both Hoffman and Garcia also shared some fun facts from the dance. “ Probably a fun fact is that we were doing a dance circle and I think someone did some jump split and they weren’t allowed to so Miss B came in right as the dance circle closed so she got stuck while everyone was jumping so it was funny.”
Meanwhile, Dani wanted to add something else: “It’s not really a fun fact, it’s a stinky fact, people there need to put deodorant on.”