Ah, yes. It’s officially HOCO season. As poster ideas fill up everyone’s Pinterest feeds and pumpkin flavoring intoxicates nasal cavities, I cannot help but reminisce on my first official dance of high school. The outfits of Freshman year homecoming were something, to say the least.

Follow me, let’s take a walk down memory lane.

In the summer before freshman year, the internet practically bullied the Class of 2023. Making fun of our practical scrunchies and need to always be hydrated with our Hydro Flasks, as a collective whole, Rosary’s Dinos wanted to be an aggressive force to be reckoned with. How aggressive you may ask? Side part aggressive.

For some reason, no one told us that a deep side part was not the equivalence to a high popularity status. I guess that mindset did not fly in high school. All I know is that the transformation from a side part to a middle part made the high school glow-up hit a little harder.

Finding the perfect dress was an added stress to the already stressful checklist of homecoming. Feeling overwhelmed, the majority of Dinos decided to have a little help from our moms. Emma Silva ’23 recalls, “Yeah, I got my dress from Lulu’s. I was giving attorney.” I love Emma’s look– professional on the top, with the classic black dress and party on the bottom, with the fabulous cheetah heels.

To be fair, I still ask for my mom’s opinion on all of my school dance dresses. But I learned from freshman year to limit her power in dress decision making as my dress was objectively ugly. The lace and the plundging neckline was not too flattering. Let alone, I hardly ever wear black so, I don’t really know why I wanted to wear this color to homecoming. Maybe I wanted to look more mature? Yeah right, not with that baby face.

When asked about her homecoming look, Reagan Beuerlein ’23 tells me, “Umm Freshman year HOCO… One word: Yikes. Why? My dress was not a dancing dress, and if you know me, I love to dance. My strap kept falling off, and it restricted me from groovin’. So, if I can give any tips, I would say to make sure to get a dress that is fully dance proof.”

I think I speak for the majority of the senior class when I say freshman year homecoming outfits were one for the books. Although we thought we looked embarrassing, seeing these photos made me realize that this was concrete evidence of our high school growth. So much has changed when we entered Servite’s Quad for the first time, wearing our awkward-length dresses and rockin’ the side parts. We were eager to enter the new high school world, pictured above, showcasing the excitement on our cute little faces. Now, I cannot believe that this will be our last one. Almost four years after our first homecoming and seeing how we’ve grown mentally, spiritually, and, most importantly, physically, I would do anything to go back to that freshman year HOCO feeling.