Students of every grade were wearing formal dress while they entered the doors of ELHS at 7 p.m. to attend the 2023 Homecoming Dance on Sept. 30. 

In the weeks before the dance, Stella Alfredson (10), a member of Student Congress, helped set up the homecoming dance to go along with the theme of the East Lansing marching band halftime show, “The Birth of Planet Earth.” 

“We have a tendency to base it off of the marching band,” Alfredson said. “We thought the earth theme would be kind of boring and hard to plan for a dance, and I think that we just decided that we’d rather have it be space themed to compliment the show.”

At the beginning of the dance, many students were already enjoying themselves and looking forward to the night to come. Toby Huhta (10) was one of these people, especially enjoying the positive environment. 

“I mean, the energy is really fun,” Huhta said. “It’s just thrilling. I just really like hanging out and goofing off with my friends. It’s a good experience.”

Doing group dances with hundreds of kids in the student union was slightly overwhelming to Marisa David-Major (11). With students dancing in different directions, things got a little chaotic for her.

“Well, the dances like that were way less coordinated,” David-Major said. “It was kind of scary and I don’t remember it being like that from other years.” 

Nonetheless, David-Major was happy to spend the night dancing with her friends at the 2023 homecoming dance. 

“It was kind of scary because I kept running into people,” David-Major said. “But, I’m looking forward to the next one. I’m always looking forward to them.”