Seven seniors and two juniors. This small group, Booster Club, is in charge of promoting the school’s spirit in all of SHS’s activities through their organization.

“Booster Club to me is a fun way to get involved,” junior member of the club Natalie Switzer said. “It is a really good way to meet new people, and I guess it is a way to bring people together.”

Even though there are class officers in school that get this job done inside each class, Booster Club unites all four classes together.

Unlike others at SHS, this club isn’t run by a student president, so it is mainly directed by all the seniors in it. Due to this, there aren’t any specific roles within the Booster Club members. All of them contribute to the club’s success through very similar ways.

The club meets weekly, every Tuesday after school in which they discuss and share ideas for the school events coming up soon. These meetings can last several hours. During the fall season, the club was extremely focused on the planning of the football games’ tailgates and themes, as well as the preparation of the homecoming dance. Which according to them took a very long time in preparation, but worked out pretty well.

“The parade turned out very nice. We had a good turn out of people from the community and the school,” senior member of the club Sam Brookshire said. “It seemed to be very organized.”

When it comes to SHS’s school spirit this year, Brookshire believes that overall it has been going good, as he has noticed a decent number of students showing up at games to support the beloved cardinal athletes. However, on the other hand, his club partner Switzer thinks the opposite.

According to her, there is a clear lack of effort from a great part of the students at SHS. For instance, when it comes to dressing up for spirit days. Switzer believes that students are no longer as involved as they used to be. 

Despite the two different thoughts on this topic, both of these members of the club do agree that this spirit could be much improved, meaning everyone and the Booster Club itself could do a much better job. 

“I feel like people really care about what other people think,” Switzer said. “I wish that a lot of students would just hype it up and bring a little bit more energy to the school’s spirit.”

But the winter is coming, and they have a lot of expectations for the basketball season. The club is very much looking forward to working on the winter pep rally event, as they call it themselves, ”one of the big ones.”

All of this work could not be done without the help of  both of the co-sponsors of the club, English teacher Sam Hanley as well as physics teacher Stacey Matlock. They are both very appreciated by the club. Hanley is known for being very helpful and doing a great job with outsiders. The actual members of the club are more focused on working with the relationships with students enrolled in SHS, while Hanley facilitates connections with adults outside of school. 

Apart from his help, the club this year can enjoy and take advantage of the great and wise experience that Matlock carries with her, as she has been involved in this project since 2000.

The Booster Club has a main goal this year, which is to be able to increase the turn out to games as much as possible. Hanley and Matlock are satisfied and think that the work done so far has been successful. 

“They are a great group of kiddos,” Matlock said. “(They are) trying to keep old traditions, and yet maybe make some of their own.”

Tailgates, social media promotion, homecoming, spirit games and weeks, king and queen contests all stem from the same group, Booster Club. 

“It is hard to measure the effectiveness of a group like (Booster Club),” Hanley said. “If people feel welcome and engaged and invited to things, then that is a win.”