Telstar High School senior, Tehya Buck, of Bethel, creates stage ribbons for her Class of ’25 mural at Telstar. The mural is part the annual Winter Carnival. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

BETHEL — Last Wednesday students from the four Telstar classes were busy in the halls outside the auditorium of the school, decorating each of their designated walls as entries in the Winter Carnival.

The halls will be judged first, but other contests, such as a scavenger hunt, ski jump, and relay races, are also being held this week. Points are accumulated, and the winning class will be announced after the talent show on Friday.

The annual carnival always ends on the Friday before February vacation and the winning class enjoys bragging rights for the rest of the year or even two years in a row, as the Class of 2024 did when they  won both as juniors and as seniors.

This year’s seniors are working on a painted mural featuring all 44 members of the Class of 2025 seated in orchestra chairs around their conductor, Senior Class Advisor Chyanna Millett-Cordwell. Above the stage is a traditional music staff with the notes to “Pomp and Circumstance,” the song played during their graduation march in June. True to their Generation Z roots, they’ve even included a printed Spotify code that allows passersby to listen to the song on their phones.

Tehya Buck from Bethel was cutting and shaping large red bows from tissue paper, with help from Ella Hopps of Woodstock. Nearby, Emma Newell and Bella Brown, both from Bethel, were using glue guns to “bedazzle a chandelier” with three different types of shiny white beads. Jocelyn Nivus, also of Bethel, was taping endless circles of masking tape to the back of the mural, described as “a ticket for admission to their graduation.”

Junior Evy Cummings, of Bethel, foreground left, looks on while the banner she created with Tommy LaPointe, far right, of Bethel is taped to the wall. Telstar High School students decorated the halls of the school to kickoff the annual Telstar Winter Carnival. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

Class of 2028 Advisor and Visual Arts Teacher, Tera Ingraham (known as “Miss I” to the students), circulated around the groups, offering advice and supplies like tape, a ladder, and staplers.

The decorating theme this year is, “Telstar’s Got the Beat.” Down the hall from the seniors, Tommy LaPointe and Evy Cummings, both from Bethel, were painting a stylized “Telstar” with boom boxes below. They worked on their Junior Class mural on the floor while Custodian Jackie Hart worked around them. When the mural needed to be moved to the wall, both Hart and Ingraham lent a hand, while a group of underclassmen looked on.

The sophomores, Sophia Percival from Andover and Sawyer Coffin from Bethel, were creating “The Era’s Tour” in their Class of 2027 style. Around their classmates’ faces, they taped Austin Mosher’s face onto Taylor Swift’s body.

On the facing wall from the sophomores, freshmen Meshia Lee of Woodstock, Graig Groves, and Bryson Walker, both of Bethel, worked on a mural called “Class of ‘28 Wrapped,” highlighting how many minutes they had spent at Telstar: 79,800.

Following the theme, a nearby vertical display featured teachers’ faces taped to their favorite music albums: Miss Christianson on Def Leppard, Miss Ingraham on Stevie Wonder, Mr. Underhill on Snoop Dogg, Mr. Grondin on J. Cole, and Ms. Richmond on Kendrick Lamar.