Fall is here, which means students are busily planning what to wear for Halloween. At Regina, however, the several days of Gnimocemoh allow us to plan not only one, but four creative costumes.

For those not familiar with the term Gnimocemoh, it is homecoming spelled backwards. Since Regina does not have a boys football team to cheer on at homecoming games, Regina puts a twist on the theme and still has plenty of fun. The amount of fun activities we do throughout the week makes up for it.

This year’s Gnimocemoh theme is Disney, and it is very exciting to see what creative ideas Regina girls come up with. Along with dressing up, Regina girls do other fun things throughout these four days, such as the wall and door decorating contests, the charity walk, and the student vs. faculty football game.

But  it does make one wonder — what do other schools do for homecoming? Do co-ed schools or even other single gendered schools, such as Notre Dame and Resurrection, do things similar to us?

Richie Costas ’15 attends Lane Tech College Prep in Chicago. At his school during Homecoming,  students gather on the football field as athletes in fall sports walk around the track. Then the dance and cheerleading teams perform with the band on the field. The finale of the day is the announcement of the Homecoming Court of the dance.

“This year, Homecoming was really fun for me. I was able to pump up the crowd with a speech because I’m captain of the Varsity Football Team. It’s also really exciting when all the boys run onto the middle of the field and everyone cheers for them. It really gets us going for our big game,” said Costas.

However, not all co-ed schools homecomings are as exciting. Taft High School in Chicago only has a big football game and dance. Joey McFeeley ’15 attends Taft and said, “I wish my school would do more stuff for Homecoming. It’s hard to get excited when it’s not seen as a big deal”.

Notre Dame College Prep is a high school every Regina girl knows. They may be a single gender school like ours, but since they are boys and do have a football team, they get to have a homecoming. During their Homecoming Week, they dress up in different themed shirts each day: one day in a sports jersey, another day in a college shirt, the next day in a shirt of their favorite band, and the last day a Hawaiian shirt. They also attend a special mass the day of their football game.

Resurrection College Prep, our rival, has never done anything for their Homecoming up until this year. For the first time ever, they got to have a Homecoming dance. Kellsie Murphy ’15 attends Resurrection and went to the Homecoming dance this past weekend.

“The dance was a lot of fun! Usually each year they only have one special thing for each grade, but it’s cool having all the grades do something together.” Murphy said.

While many Chicagoland area high schools have spirit weeks where do they do more fun activities, it’s apparent how lucky Regina is to have both a spirit week and Gnimocemoh! Both events make Regina the truly special and exciting place it is, just like its name.