Class of 2019 celebrates one last time at Grad Night

PHOTO: The Krusty Krab, which was inspired by the iconic restaurant in SpongeBob Squarepants, served food to the Class of 2019 at Grad Night.

By Clara Ault,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

After the graduation ceremony on Friday June 14, Davis High’s newest graduates headed over to Emerson Junior High for the annual Grad Night. Running from 9:30 p.m. to five a.m., it’s “a fun, safe and sober all night graduation celebration,” according to the Grad Night website.

The event, developed in response to an increase in drug-related car crashes after graduation, has been around for about 30 years. Put on by parent volunteers, Grad Night planning starts in the fall and different committees meet frequently throughout the year to perfect each detail.

This year’s theme was “This is Us”, which focused on the lives of the graduating seniors and the pop culture that has defined them. “We start in October organizing [be]cause there’s just a lot of little things that have to get put in place,” the event chair of the Grad Night board Sarah Fiscus-Trillo said.

Fiscus-Trillo calls herself “a glorified project manager.” She oversees the entire event and has to be at Emerson from set up to clean up with a few breaks in between, in case anything goes awry. She is also in charge of making sure everyone stays on the $55,000 budget. Grad night gets their money from various sponsors around Davis and ticket sales for the actual event.

“We have sponsors so individuals and companies in the Davis area that donate money and then we sell tickets. The tickets start at $85 at the beginning of the year and then we increase it to $100 the night of,” Fiscus-Trillo said. The price of the ticket and the budget itself may seem high, but the graduating seniors are given a night well worth their money.

“There’s food all night…a hypnotist show, a comedian,…we have a DJ, the stadium has those hamster balls that you get in, a rock climbing wall, we have an amazing raffle, like televisions, and iPad and cash prizes and there’s so much more. So for your ticket price you get a lot,” Fiscus-Trillo said.

Senior Rachel Hedman enjoyed the send-off to her DHS years. “Grad night was a perfect way to close the year off because it lets kids play and just be around the people we love,” Hedman said.

Out of all the activities, silent disco kept her occupied the longest. “I didn’t leave silent disco for over two hours. I had a few others with me but everyone else kinda came in and out but I am physically sore from dancing that long. It was so fun though we were all just joking around and going off to the songs,” Hedman said.

Grad Night was a way for seniors to properly say farewell to the town, the friends and the peers that have defined the majority of their years. “It was a good way to send off high school because I had literally all my friends there and it was a fun way to say goodbye together in such a unique and entertaining way,” senior Rayan Tilamatine said.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *