WEB EXCLUSIVE

O-Glow usually kicks off the year with splashes of colorful paint on the first Friday of school. This year, it was scheduled for Sept. 15 along with Powder Puff, but Hurricane Irma pushed O-Glow all the way to Jan. 12.

“This will be a fun way to start off the New Year,” said Student Government Association (SGA) sponsor Heather DeLong. “Every Friday between now and the end of the football season ties up many students–football, band, color guard, cheer, Mane Attraction. Then December is a busy time for everyone.”

DeLong also stated that the facilities for O-Glow are available in January.

If O-Glow had been held on its traditional date originally, Irma would not have caused a delay. SGA had reasons for changing the traditional date well before Irma existed, however.

“This year, since we started school on a Thursday, it only gave us two days to prepare for the largest event at the school,” DeLong said. “We didn’t think it was possible to make the event as awesome as possible.”

Powder Puff, which is usually held during Homecoming week, was moved to match with O-Glow this year. According to junior class sponsor Kim Finnegan, this change was meant to “make Powder Puff the lead-in event.”

In the past, O-Glow’s first-Friday schedule placed it on the same night as the annual Orange and Black football scrimmage, where the football game was the lead-in event to O-Glow. With the pre-Irma plan for this year, students would have been able to attend Powder Puff, then head over to O-Glow.

However, due to other conflicts, Powder Puff has a separate make-up date now: Nov. 2.

“Football games and band practices, along with the schedules of our coaches and getting new practice times and locations for the teams, make it pretty tricky,” Finnegan said.