The cheer team organized Winter Formal, which occurred on Feb. 4 with the theme of “Starry Night” and gave students the opportunity to spend time with friends at Knott’s Berry Farm.

This year, one of the biggest goals the cheer team had for winter formal was to increase participation in the event.

“I think the most successful thing about winter formal was getting so many students to go this year,” senior and cheer co-captain Madi Rodriguez said. “I think it was one of the biggest amounts of students to go to formal.”

The location of formal this year was the same as it has been for many years in the past. Cheer students chose to continue to hold formal at this location because they feel that it maximizes the positive and cheerful vibe present at the event.

In order to improve Winter Formal this year, cheer students worked to increase the amount of decorations present at the ballroom and also featured a new way to reveal who the kings and queens were this year. During Winter Formal the senior king and queen were revealed to be James Lu and Annie Chang, respectively and the junior king and queen were revealed to be Quang Nguyen and Brenda Ascencio. The sophomore king and queen were Ryu Suzuki and Megan Kosai and the freshman king and queen were Tommy Butcher and Hannah Cooper.

Events such as the revealing of the kings and queens for the Winter Formal court were some of the events that brought great amounts of suspense and excitement to students.

“It felt very surreal,” Chang said.  “I was both shocked that I won and grateful to our school. I was so happy that I was able to gain such an amazing experience.”

However, due to the cost of attending Winter Formal, many students opted out of formal to celebrate a day of leisure by holding their own anti-formal events. At these “anti-formals” students gathered together and participated in activities such as eating dinner together, going to alternative theme parks and spending time together with friends.

“I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money on formal when I was already going to go for physics, and all I cared  about was having a good time hanging out with my friends,” senior Alan Huang said. “It was a good experience because I was able to have fun with some of my closest friends, and that’s really all I could ask for.”