Prom Theme Announced

Last Wednesday, this year’s Prom theme was announced: “Chinese New Year: The Year of the Lancer.”

Every year, STUCO Juniors are in charge of coordinating prom. They first chose the theme, and once that was done, they started to organize with an event planner and are finalizing the plans.

Junior Class Secretary Denny Rice was in charge of making sure every member of Junior STUCO works cohesively to organize the event.

“There’s a lot of input that’s given by a lot of different members of STUCO” Rice said. “In terms of the prom theme, I made sure that we made a decision, made it quickly and were able to move forward with the process.”

Junior Class Sponsor, Jennifer Hair, is also very involved in the process of planning prom. This year, however, she hasn’t had to have quite as much involvement, thanks to Rice and the other members of Junior STUCO.

“This group is really proactive and energetic,” Hair said. “They did a really good job with collaborating and came up with [the theme] completely on their own.”

Other possible theme ideas were Candyland, Around the World in 80 Days, Las Vegas, Chinatown and Japanese Zen Garden.

“[The Juniors] started with a zen garden feel, but then went up a level into more of a party and festival atmosphere,” Hair said.

This idea developed until they reached their final theme.

“It’s neat, it’s different,” STUCO Sponsor Hannah Pence said. “I’ve been at East 20 years, and I don’t think we’ve ever done anything along that line.”

This year, Union Station, the venue for prom, has added $4000 to their charge for hosting. This has been a challenge, but the Juniors have found some solutions.

“To help offset the costs we figured that we would do some of the decorations ourselves.”

Along with these handmade decorations, the juniors have some surprises planned.

“We’ve still got a couple tricks up our sleeves that we think will really make this prom pretty great,” Rice said.

With the unique decor, surprises and overall party atmosphere, Hair believes the theme will be executed well.

“We have some events and big elements planned,” Hair said. “I think it’ll look awesome.”