Last Friday, February 7, marked the end of East Noble’s annual Riley Week, in which money is raised in an effort to support Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. Despite the antagonizing snow days littered throughout the week, Student Council still managed to raise over $11,000.
An event that was meant to begin on January 27, Riley Week was pushed to begin on Friday, January 31, due to multiple snow days within the week. “The snow days didn’t really make the week stressful,” said Mrs. Amy DeWitt, an East Noble mathematics teacher and sponsor of Student Council. “They were just annoying.”
Not only did the snow days push the dates back, but they made it difficult to determine how much food to buy for the Riley Wagon, a wagon that travels to all classrooms during each period to sell food for extra funds. Being cut a day short, the Riley Wagon is the most popular of all aspects of Riley Week. Students’ eyes light up every time a Student Council member opens the door to the classroom and calls, “Riley Wagon.” Each time, a handful of pupils donate their money to the wagon in order to buy their favorite food or drink, which happened to be Arizona Teas and Goldfish this year.
Other events included Red for Riley Friday and Hat Monday, where students donate a dollar to wear their favorite hats, and teachers pay a dollar to wear casual clothing. The largest of events, though, is Collage, East Noble’s annual talent show.
Hosted by five Student Council students, the show displayed 35 acts of the greatest talents of the East Noble student body. “I believe that this was one of the more successful Collage shows,” said Lauren Butler, a Collage hostess, performer, and the senior class president. “Although we were unable to hold a dress rehearsal to go through the show before we presented, everyone did really well just going with it.”
During intermission or after the show, spectators could vote by donating any amount of money to a red (for Riley) bucket, labeled with the title of the act that they thought deserved to win. “By intermission, we had over $2,000 raised,” claimed Butler.
- Sixth place belonged to a band performance, which was saved for last, called “Walking in the Sand.” Containing brass, percussion, guitar, and vocal accompaniments, Andy Berkey, Bryanna Britten, Jesse Hardiek, Jared Morley, Ari Orweiler, Noah Shepherd, Hal Sonne, Kim Vanderpool, and Logan Waters all ended the show on an impressive note.
- Fifth place was won by the initial performance, which was displayed by Matt Lewis, Warren McMillan, and Anthony Phan. Using a vocal and piano pairing, they performed the song “Day Man” and drew several chuckles from the crowd.
- Fourth place was designated to Lauren Butler, Courtney Casselman, Lindsey Casselman, and Melissa Huff, all hostesses to the show. The title was “Making Gravy,” and it involved a randomly hysterical routine, which earned much love from the crowd for the girls’ silliness.
- Third place was won by Timothy McKnight with his electric drumming routine, called “Pop Danthology 2013.” Lights flashed, booms billowed, and the crowd offered a standing ovation for a performance that really got everyone excited.
- Second place went to a powerful vocal performance by Megan Rainey, called “House of The Rising Sun.” Being the reigning Collage winner, Rainey didn’t disappoint with an impressive song.
- First place belonged to a fantastically choreographed dance routine from Jordan Axel and Megan Butler. They danced to the song “Can’t Hold Us,” by Macklemore, and executed the fast routine.
With all competition aside, Riley Week still managed to reach $11,000, with more still being donated, when Mother Nature did not want to cooperate. “I would definitely say that Riley Week was successful. With all of the cancellations and confusion this year, we didn’t raise as much money as we did last year, but we raised a lot of money,” said Butler, reflecting on her final Riley Week. “Whenever a large amount of people come together for an effort, something great is destined to come out of it.”