The Perry High School homecoming king and queen will be crowned tonight. 

Students and administrators worked together to find the best way to celebrate homecoming while keeping COVID-19 concerns in mind. Instead of having a pep rally to announce homecoming royalty, coronation will occur before tonight’s football game versus Winterset. Senior Ainsley Marburger tells Raccoon Valley Radio she’s excited that her senior class won’t have to miss out on this annual tradition, “I was pretty pumped. I was really shocked that we were even going to have a homecoming this year, just for safety aspects. Now that it’s here, it’s really exciting.”

Jayson Chavez adds that it’s been a team effort to provide as safe an environment as possible this year, “Everyone’s doing a really good job with wearing a mask and social distancing. Honestly, it’s amazing how good we’re doing on just trying to keep the COVID away. We’re doing really good on communicating with each other and telling each other to wear masks. We’re not afraid to call each other out. We all want to wear masks because we want to be here at school; we don’t want our senior year to be ruined.”

Both Marburger and Chavez were named to the homecoming court. Other king candidates are Miguel Sierra, Riese Archer, Abner Rivera, and Zach Darr. The other queen candidates are Claire Southward, Shelby De La Cruz, Cindy Troung, and Aubree Tasler.

Homecoming festivities continue tomorrow as the school is putting on a carnival event for students at Jim Kaufman Track starting at 7 p.m. Students will be put in small groups so that social distancing can be more easily enforced, and the school can keep track of who is in close contact with whom. Face coverings will be strongly encouraged.