Abbey Fera huddled with her Drama Club students by the side of the K-Park gym, fists clenched and stomachs tight. They had worked for weeks on their float for the school’s Red Wagon competition, putting in countless hours and hard work.

The finished float proudly presented Maleficent, played by junior Kendra Perry, with pale green skin and black clothing draped around her shoulders. As they circled around the gym, other characters followed, bringing the scene to life.

Now they waited for the winner to be called.

“Choir!” announced principal Lisa Drabing.

Fera’s stomach sank. Drama Club came in third. Close, but not in the top spot. Next year, she promised herself, would be different.

That was a year ago. Now, Fera and her Drama Club are at it again, determined to nab that first-place prize.

The Drama Club students have been working since September to create a winning float. K-Park has been carrying on the Homecoming Red Wagon tradition for five years, bringing out the competitive nature in the school’s clubs..

Each school-associated club creates a wagon corresponding with the theme of homecoming for that year.

“Being in the top three gave us the thought like whoa,” Fera explains. “We want to go see if we can go win.”

Fera has been at K-Park for two years and enjoys the idea of the homecoming floats and the homecoming dance. She believes it’s a great way to bring the school together as one.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for the kids to just go out and have fun as a school as a whole,” Fera said.

The theater department plans to keep its exciting ideas for this year’s homecoming float a secret to keep the theme as unique as possible.

“We are trying to win and I can’t give away my secrets,” Fera said, “but I think Willy Wonka is cool because you can go so many different directions.”

Last year, theater’s toughest competition was the choir group, lead by Benjamin Fahnders, who plans on taking the gold again this year.

“The theme doesn’t matter,” Fahnders said. “Choir is going to destroy everyone else.”

The theater team plans to win over the audience and beat choir this year with something big. Something that captures the audience’s attention is by expanding off what the crowd likes and adding random eye-catching elements.

The drama students used the same strategy in last year’s parade by wearing decorative costumes and having a student dressed in a squirrel costume to capture the audience’s attention.   

“If you look back into the story of Sleeping Beauty, she plays with woodland animals,” Kendra Perry said. “And we thought it would be really funny because no one else would have a squirrel.”

Perry, a veteran theater student, is excited to be part of it this year’s float, which focuses on one of the events in the Willy Wonka movie.

“We didn’t want to do what everyone else is doing,” Perry said. “We were trying trying to think of something really different.”

This year, the theater squad hopes, will be their year to win.