Neon colors, jerseys, pajamas, Hawaiian T-shirts, and white and green outfits were the ensembles of choice during Dartmouth High’s Spirit Week.

The week-long event tasked students with dressing with a specific theme each day of the week. Every day the teachers, in their first block classes, kept track of how many students dressed for the day. At the end of the week, the numbers were tallied and classes were awarded at the pep rally, which happened on Friday afternoon.

During Spirit Week, students were also asked to donate to charity. This included a book drive and a food drive.

“We do Helping Hands during lunch, where we go around asking for spare change,” said Emma Martins, 17, the senior class secretary. “It’s good because everybody wants to win something at the pep rally. The more your grade gets involved in donating, the more you win.”

The heightened noise level indicated heightened spirits at the raucous pep rally. Kids adorned in green and white from head to toe filled the bleachers to shout and cheer. Members of the Dartmouth band performed as students filed into the gymnasium for the event.

“In the past, the rallies have been shorter and they were less involved,” said Dean of Students Janice Sharp. “But this year, we decided we wanted to put some pep back into the pep rally.”

Sharp said that, in recent memory, the pep rallies would last for about 15 minutes. She said she had permission to expand the program so long as the students adhered to an agenda.

“They’re all very serious about wanting to make this work and they’ve been working hard to do that,” she said. “This is a trial run. If it’s successful, we’re going to do a winter sports rally in January.”

Each of the four grades were invited to develop and perform a skit. The football team and cheerleaders teamed up to perform a dance number, the junior class performed a Grease-themed medley and the seniors performed a song and dance number from the “High School Musical” series.

“In the third movie, they graduate from high school,” said Martins. “We picked one of the songs that talks about how, although they’re moving on from high school, they’ll always be a part of it.”

“We tried to get as many people as we could from different cliques and groups to participate,” she added.

However, all the enthusiasm – and noise – was not enough to stave off the inclement weather. The third and final component of Spirit Week, the selection of the homecoming king and queen, was scheduled to occur during halftime of a football game on Friday night.

Flashes of lightning were seen above the stadium about 15 minutes into the game and rumbles of thunder persisted, postponing the game.

Principal Gould said that the homecoming-related events will happen closer to the homecoming dance, which is scheduled for next month.

Despite that setback, the seniors, who were the big winners during Spirit Week, were excited to take part in the festivities.

“You don’t think about being a senior until things like this start coming up. We’re sitting in the senior section for pep rally,” said Bryce Boswell, 17, the senior class president.

“The stressful part’s coming up with college and all that planning,” said Martins. “Right now, I’m having a blast. It’s a lot of fun being a senior.”