Junior Kendall Martinson walked to her car in the back and had a surprise waiting for her. Her maroon car had “homecoming?” painted over the windows, and her admirer waited with balloons in hand to ask her officially.

“I was shocked when I saw him,” Martinson said. “I had no idea he was going to ask me.”

The students prepare for this year’s homecoming game by making signs and getting dates set up. With the game being so early in the year, students have minimal time to invite someone to go with them. Senior Seth Jaggers cut it close, asking junior Devon Irby within three days of the game. He threw everything together and rushed over to her house before she got home from cheerleading.

“It’s hard to plan anything special with so little time,” Jaggers said, “but I brought a cookie cake to get a yes.”

Junior Adrianna Altstaetter arrived at her boyfriend’s house, junior Kyle Manning, and followed a trail of rose petals upstairs to find Chik-fil-A, Starbucks and her favorite kind of flowers; pink roses.

“I had a feeling he would ask me but not in this way,” Altstaetter said. “It caught me off guard so that made it a little more special.”

 Although many of the freshmen went to past homecomings, this year they get to experience it firsthand. As they continue to adapt to high school life, homecoming became something most of them were used to already.

“I’m just ready for the game and I want to see what it’s like,” freshman Meagan Mesch said.