People laughing and joking around, having a good time at a party specifically designed to commemorate the year’s achievements are exactly what banquets are all about. With the year wrapping up, organizations and sports are gathering together to celebrate and review the highlights of the year with food and fun.

“I feel like they‘re a great way to cap off the season,” senior Andrew Thomas said. “You get to together with your team and have a sort of a last hoorah before summer.”

Most sports team held banquets, celebrating the team’s accomplishments and giving out individual awards to players.

“The awards make banquets special because you can see how many amazing athletes are really on the team,” freshman Tanner Parker said. “It’s just a way to be with your teammates and have some needed bonding time.”

While preparing for a banquet, moms and helpful students will typically put together some creative ideas that make it an interesting way to look back at the events of the year, sometimes over multiple years if there are veterans on the squad.

“At the volleyball banquet this year we had a slideshow for all the seniors,” junior Caitlin Topham said. “It was fun seeing baby pictures of them, but it was also really bittersweet.”

But banquets are not limited to just athletic teams. Organizations like theatre and FFA also hold end of the year banquets to celebrate the year.

“At an academic banquet it is really nice because everyone gets a reward for what they have accomplished whereas, at an athletic banquet only a handful of people get recognized,” Topham said.  

For the seniors, though, this is one of their final high school memories with their sport or club.

“Having the seniors at the banquet makes it a more emotional experience because this is the last time we will all be together,” sophomore Lauren Baker said.

While banquets are a chance for seniors to say goodbye, it’s also an opportunity for the underclassmen to step up and start becoming leaders of the organization.

“I feel like it will be hard to fill the space that the seniors have left and knowing that this will be my last high school banquet makes me really sad because it means that it is a final closure to all the things I have accomplished and the fun times we’ve had,” senior Whitney Watson said. “But I think that the freshmen have the capability of making Rouse even better than what it has become over the last four years.”