East’s Night of Stars was advertised as a celebration of students and all of their academic achievements, East’s first honor roll, and I decided to go check it out.
I was excited to get an invitation to East’s honor roll celebration, but was debating whether or not it was worth it to even go after most people I asked were skipping out. I ended up deciding I would swing by. On my way there, I saw Hammond, an ECHO editor, running across the crosswalk in an Indiana Jones-esque outfit and figured it’d be an interesting night.
As a senior, I only attended the second part of the event, but was a little underwhelmed when I walked into the Wildcat, dressed up as a party space, not that it really could’ve been anything different, given that it was the first trial of the event. A few minutes after I walked in, we were called to line up and walk into the auditorium for the ceremony. To go back to a previous point, everyone I had asked about the Night of Stars was not going, and that was reflected in the turnout, with about 30 people in that line (for about 500 or so invited students).
As celebratory music played, we shuffled through the auditorium as a sparse audience of about 50 parents watched on, clapping with just a little bit of pity in their eyes. We filed into the right side of the front seats in the auditorium, but ended up all having to collectively get up and move to the middle section as there were not enough people to fill both. As I looked around me, I saw a really odd variety of interpretations of the “black tie” dress code, with people wearing sneakers, high heels, vests, extremely nice dresses, and looking like they just came straight from school. The only real black tie attire I have is my prom dress, and that thing is not coming to school.
To get started, we heard a little introduction to the event from an administrator and then listened to a jazz guitar performance from musical guest Kai-Alexander Casey. I really enjoyed the performance and was impressed by the lovely song, but for some reason it lulled me into an almost hypnotic state with a set of melodic chords that took me into some other strange dimension for a little while. The very mindful music had me contemplating my future plans. Upon checking the time, it had been only six minutes, so I think I was just going through a bit of a crisis.
We all stood up for about 10 seconds and were clapped for as part of our honor while Katy Perry’s “Roar” played in the background. Then, Principal Casey talked a little about the unspoken, but clear lack of vigor at the event. The idea was that the first time’s not always the best, but it’ll get better and has to start somewhere, something I appreciated him acknowledging. We were then required to all come up on stage and take an awkward group photo, where I, standing right next to him, realized that Mr. Casey and I are pretty much the same height.
Afterwards, we were released to the Wildcat to drink little bottles of grape juice, eat mints and cupcakes, and feast on cheese. There was an absolutely incredible amount of that pre-cubed cheese from Costco all over the tables, and no matter how many people ate it, it seemed that the cheese supply never diminished. Sometimes I wonder what happened to all the cheese.
I went to go get a certificate that they made for each of us and was met with a kind of crumpled gray piece of paper with the lamination falling off that was clearly designed with Google Slides. On the contrary, one of my friends had a wonderfully laminated certificate with her name spelled wrong on it.
All in all, it was a nice ceremony, but just a little sad. I understand that the school did their best to give students living in the insanity of Chapel Hill, and going to East in particular, a little reality check that making a 4.0 isn’t just the expected norm and that improvement and positive change is genuinely something to celebrate, but I can’t say you missed anything great if you didn’t go—and chances are, you didn’t. I snapped a quick photo with Mr. Casey, snagged a few mints as my concession prize for being a student here, and took my leave in the dark of night.
Photo by Hammond Cole Sherouse/The ECHO
