Despite a canceled dance, the King’s Ball Rally still proceeded as scheduled and didn’t fail to give the campus a grand time. The overarching theme of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” was prominent throughout the rally with ASB’s rendition of the “Ba Sing Se” setting, which is where the show takes place.

From freshmen in their yellow attire to seniors in their red, students all across RCHS gathered in the gym watching various performances by multiple on-campus programs.

Starting off the rally was Mr. Aaron Bishop and Principal Joshua Kirk portraying “Grand Masters” in search of the next “Avatar,” being the King’s Ball King. 

King’s Ball court this year consisted of senior boys William McRae, Randolfe Manago, Connor Favero, Angel Chang, Cayden Ginting, and Paul Masilang.

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When asked to describe their experience, Manago said it was stressful, but they still still had fun.

“I’m grateful regardless and was so glad to experience it with the other court members where I had nothing but positive moments with them,” Manago said.

What’s different about this year’s King’s Ball court is that they were given an extra week to prepare for their “walk-out” dances.

Senior and Director of Equity and Inclusion of ASB, Gaelle Jean-Pierre, explained that the reasoning behind the extra time was “so the King’s Ball princes are given more time to practice their dance and so that admin can approve it before the rally.”

Another difference with this rally from other rallies is how long it took to set up. 

Senior and Co-Director of campus events, Mackenzie Sigman, said, “we got things done much more efficiently since we got to work out all the kinks with homecoming set up.”

Sigman also said that the rally setup was from 6:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., which is drastically shorter than the homecoming rally setup which started at 5:00 p.m. and ended at 2:30 a.m. Despite a more efficient setup, Sigman still said the process was just as tiring as any other rally.

“The whole experience is honestly really exhausting but being surrounded with friends working towards a common goal is really fun and rewarding,” she said.

Performances for the rally began with Colorguard, who haven’t performed in a rally since 2019. Junior and colorguard captain, Sydney Easterday, said that the experience was extremely fun.

“I think the team did pretty well considering the limited time we had to actually rehearse it, it was pretty nice,” said Easterday

Cheer was next up for performances and according to senior and cheer captain, Hannah Hawkins, cheer was able to prepare their performance in a short amount of time.

“We planned to set up right after homecoming, but unfortunately some plans have changed, so we put everything together the week of,” Hawkins said.

Last up for performances was varsity dance with their showcase entitled “Whuteva.”

Senior and varsity dance member Casey Himes said, “I really love this dance, I feel like the style is definitely different from what we’re used to doing like we’re used to doing more sassy type of things but this is definitely a more energetic piece that we’re not really used to but it’s super fun.”

To incorporate the theme of the rally into their dance, their outfits were inspired by the “Kyoshi Warriors.” 

“[The dance] is super tiring, but at the end of the day I really like it a lot,” Himes said.

Because King’s Ball was canceled this year because of a lack of ticket sales, RCHS adopted a new process of crowning the king. Towards the end of 5th period, the King’s Ball princes were escorted on golf carts around the school and finally congregated in the quad awaiting the announcement of who the 2023 King’s Ball king was.

This year, Cayden Ginting was crowned our 2023 King’s Ball King. At first, he said he didn’t realize he had won.

“I heard from the people on the third story saying a name that started with a C so I thought it was Connor, so when Bishop said my name I was just in shock,” Ginting said. “[my experience on court] was amazing, at first I was kinda hesitant because I didn’t wanna do the dances, but it was like one of the best experiences of my high school career so far.”