By Molly Flynn

I stepped into the fire department banquet hall. People’s dancing shoes were already tapping the ground to the beat. Streamers and snowflakes hung from the ceilings. Demogorgons from Stranger Things stood tall near backdrops. And in the very middle, a sign read: “BBES Snowball ‘26.” 

On January 15, BBES had our second annual formal dance. There was loads of dancing (including some teachers), plenty of food, and nostalgic ‘80s music from our DJ, Mr. Leprotto.

There were 70 students there—even more than last year! The eighth grade won attendance points for 100% attendance before anyone else. The eighth grade also won points for the most dancing. The best way to dance is to not care about everyone else in the room. Just be yourself, and everyone else will follow. Besides loads of dancing, there were games like mini bowling and mini cornhole.

But my overall favorite part was a spirit week leading up to the dance. Each day, the class that dressed up the most got points towards Battle of the Classes. Battle of the Classes, run by the phys ed teacher, Mr. Pulcine, is a competition in which students complete challenges and spirit weeks to earn points for their class. The eighth grade won with 60 points! Second was sixth grade with 47. Third was fifth with 41, and in fourth was 7th with 36. Also part of Spirit Week was a rock, paper, scissors challenge. All students received a Hawaiian lei; if you won, you kept it; if you lost, you gave it away. Once again, the eighth grade took the victory with about 60 leis. 

For the last day of spirit week, we had a pep rally where teachers selected kids for challenges. There was a tic-tac-toe relay, a hula hoop race, scooter racing, hungry, hungry hippos, and the most entertaining of all, musical chairs.

As you can imagine, the eighth grade won the week with a total of 60 points. If you were there, you would know how grand their celebration was. “We believe that we will win” was practically screamed. We honored Ms. Covert and Ms. Acerra. But most of all, we celebrated together. Not only were all grade levels happy with their scores, but it also brought people together. Each grade level had to join together to beat the others. That is the most important thing a school can achieve.