This year the senior class of Monmouth Academy was bound and determined to win. Coming so close last year, losing by only five points to last year’s seniors, and it being our last chance to win, really provided an extra boost. There was some fierce competition all week long. The seniors used everything they had learned in the last three years to win, and they took the cake, metaphorically speaking, since all we earned was bragging rights.

Winter Carnival is a week-long competition between the classes of Monmouth Academy. It starts off on Monday morning before February vacation with pajama day. Students wore their pajamas to school and earned points for their class. On Tuesday, students showed their school spirit by wearing maroon and white. The seniors were inventive in making sure everyone had the right colors. People brought in extra jerseys, jackets and shirts and loaned them to people before the headcount was taken. Wednesday was class color day, and again inventiveness was used because face paint was a common sight in all the classes. Thursday was class theme day. The freshman had the 40’s, the sophomores had the 60’s, the juniors had 2020, and the seniors had the 80’s.

There were sports and board games after school every day. Monday was floor hockey and Pictionary. Tuesday was volleyball and chess. Wednesday was soccer and Uno. Thursday was ultimate Frisbee and apples to apples.

Each class had a portion of a hallway to decorate according to their themes and a portion of the snow-covered front lawn to build a sculpture that was also relevant to the theme, as well making a cake for Friday.

Thursday night, students had the option of attending the school dance, which earned their class points as well. Just about everything was worth points.

On Friday, the classes competed against each other all day long in various events. The day started out with the Academy Bowl. For this event, the class as a whole was tested on the courses they were taking.

There were games such as musical chairs and four-square volleyball, contests like pie eating, bobbing for apples, tug-of-war and knock out. There was something for everyone to participate in. Each class performed a skit in the afternoon. The relay event was in two parts, the “brainy” part with things like identifying parts of speech, states, sorting cards numerically, and magic eye. There was also the active side with things like leap frog, jump rope, jumping on the stage, carrying an egg on a spoon and a few other activities.

By the end of the day, though, seniors proved that they were the champions!