Rancho Cucamonga High School hosted its Welcome Back rally for staff and students on Friday, Aug. 16. This 30-minute rally, which was held in the gym, welcomed back students from summer while getting them excited for the 2024-2025 school year.
“The purpose of the rally was to celebrate being back at school and using it as an opportunity to highlight all the wonderful things this campus has to offer as well as teach our culture of school spirit, excellence, and kindness. We wanted students to get excited about being back together again,” Ms. Heather Landau, the ASB Adviser, said.
The rally was only 30 minutes long, but during this time, there were performances from varsity dance, cheer, color guard, and even band. ASB encouraged students to wear colors depending on their grade level. Seniors wore purple, juniors wore black, sophomores wore gray, and freshmen wore white.
“I think the first rally was a lot of fun. I really liked the energy everyone had,” freshman Emma Sanner said.
According to Landau, this was the first time in fourteen years that RCHS held a Welcome Back rally.
“For the first time in 14 years, we decided to have the Welcome Back rally to bring back a tradition that has been lost for years. Welcome Back rallies of the past were always a great way to get everyone excited about being back together and celebrating what makes RCHS the greatest high school on Earth,” Landau said. “We also had an opening to do this rally again due to the defunct King’s Ball rally and our Homecoming is late this year, so we would have gone two months without having anything bring us together in the gym.”
The rally being at the beginning of the school year made it difficult for students in ASB and SA to be prepared on time to put on the show. Nevertheless, they pulled it off just in time.
“Timing was our greatest challenge as we started working on this rally the second to last week of July. Luckily, we have incredibly talented students in SA and ASB who put in long hours to produce beautiful artwork and a fun show,” Landau said.
Rallies are one way RCHS showcases its community. They bring a sense of community and joy to the school and allow students to showcase their talent whether it is making posters, dancing, or being recognized for academic achievements.
(Teagan Backer)
“We continuously are teaching school culture in everything we do, so this rally was an opportunity to teach our new Cougars how we do things here at Rancho, but also to remind our returning students how much fun we have here. We wanted to get the Seniors excited to be back and get loud and celebrate the fact that is their last year of high school. Our school embodies three things: school spirit (we bleed purple), the celebration of excellence in all aspects of our campus and spreading kindness and love,” Landau said. “All our events this year will come back to these three pillars we stand on, and our opening rally hopefully set the tone for all the fantastic events that are to come this year.”
