Lilly Zaks
News Editor
The setup is complete: the lights are turned on, the music begins to play, and students file into Truist Stadium. Anticipation fills the air among RJ Reynolds juniors, seniors, and their guests as they finally arrive at one of the biggest events of the year– prom.
For many students, prom is a rite of passage for high schoolers. As people dance the night away under the stars, many don’t realize the hard work put in to the actual event, beginning months before.
Prom committee steered all the details of prom, captained by the duo of French teacher Victoria Schmoyer and ASL teacher Amy Folk, along with sixteen selected students.
“Prom committee has always been so students can take an active role in planning for the prom, on the theme and decoration side of things,” Schmoyer said.
Students have the opportunity to apply to be on this committee by filling out an application and getting teacher recommendations. Once the applications are turned in, Schmoyer and Folk sift through the candidates and decide on the final group of students.
“This year, we have 16 students that we selected,” Schmoyer said. “It’s a little bigger than in years past, but we had a lot of applications and a lot of really good candidates.”
Most students hear about prom committee through word of mouth or from the teachers directly.
“I heard about prom committee through my friend Devyn when she was in it two years ago,” committee member Kat Edwards said. “I applied because I would get an inside look at prom and help make it really pretty and fun for everyone.”
The students are integral to creating the theme of the night and all of the decorations.
“We have a session where we toss out some ideas, and the kids toss out some ideas,” Schmoyer said. “We get catalogs from the companies that sell stuff that we look at for ideas and inspiration. We sort of select from there and see what people are interested in. We ended up doing multiple votes as we pared it down this year to get a theme.”
The final theme ended up being under the stars. Many students like this theme as it isn’t specific and encapsulates a wide range of possibilities.
“I love the theme,” committee member Vivian Swain said. “We voted on the theme as a group, and I think it leaves so much room for creativity.”
The group meets every Tuesday after school in the weeks leading up to the big night, working on centerpieces, decorations, and selling tickets. RJR students, true to the school’s arts magnet designation, tap into their artist abilities and creativity.
“We do have a sort of rich tradition of our students creating a lot of our decorations, as opposed to just buying a bunch of stuff online,” Schmoyer said.
This year, the committee intentionally created decorations spray-painted with gold and silver hues to give students the illusion of being under the stars. A lot of hard work went into this process through generating ideas, engineering the actual decorations, and figuring out where to put them.
“My job is designing decorations and how we want the prom space to look and feel like,” committee member Avriel Douthit said.
These students’ efforts continue right up through the day of prom, as they meet in the morning to set up for the event.
“The tables and all of that is already pre-set up, so we have the members sort of setup centerpieces and lay out the things the way they want them,” Schmoyer said.
As all the students are getting ready and taking pictures before arriving, Schmoyer and Folk stay to make the final preparations for the night.
“We just have to go around, turn on lights, and any of the other decorations that we’re putting out that need to get hung up,” Schmoyer said. “Then, we get back there like an hour or so before the prom to make sure everything is ready, and nothing blew over.”
The committee, once again, has put in tremendous effort in order to give RJR students the best prom experience possible. All of their hard work is sure to come together in a spectacular night under the stars.