In early December, Student Council members discussed possible causes of low attendance at last year’s Sweetheart dance. They decided the cause of low attendance could be the implied meaning of the name itself.
“We don’t want anyone to think it has to be a boyfriend-girlfriend thing,” student body president Evelyn Davis said. “We want [students] to think they could bring a guy friend or I can just go with a bunch of girls or a bunch of guys can go together. We wanted to make the feel a little more like Homecoming in the way that big groups of girls go or guys ask friends that are girls.”
StuCo members brought in multiple ideas for names, such as Winter Formal and Women Pay All. The members then voted and chose Sadie Hawkins.
“Essentially, Sweetheart is a term that involves love and dating,” Davis said. “Sadie Hawkins is just by nature a little more casual. While this is the same idea with the girl asking the guy, people are saying that they would much prefer to ask someone to Sadie because it could be a friend thing as well as a date thing. Mostly, we’re just kind of taking away that connotation of love and Valentine’s Day, even though it is around that time of year.”
Student Council sponsor Mark Mosier said the idea of changing the dance to increase attendance has been mentioned in previous years as well.
Student body vice president senior Elliott Voss said the name was also changed so underclassmen would go to the dance.
“Mainly, we were just trying to get freshman and sophomores involved because last year we didn’t have the participation we were looking for,” he said. “We decided if we changed the connotation from you have to have a date to having fun, like at Homecoming, it would be a lot better.”
Voss said though the dance’s name has changed, the dance itself will not.
“We’re going to have a music video that Student Council does that’s related to Sadie Hawkins, but other than that, there should be many of the same things as last year,” he said.
Davis said the dance, scheduled for Feb. 11, is going to have the same feel as Homecoming.
“The only effects on the dance are going to be probably less slower songs because we want it to be sort of the same vibe as Homecoming where everyone is just dancing and having fun,” she said. “We’re just hoping that most people will just look past the lovey sentiment of Sweetheart and just see something new and better in Sadie.”
Davis said the name change would help people feel more involved in the school and was a move StuCo knew it had to make.
“There’s a thought that Sweetheart has been a tradition, but when a tradition stops being effective is when it has to be changed,” she said. “We’re hoping this will be successful, and we’re hoping for people to be happy.”

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