The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

Dancing, touching tributes mark Sunlake special occasion

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It’s a longstanding tradition, so the weather wasn’t about to stop it.

Sunlake High mom Kristin Satin performs a dance in a shirt with her son’s face on it during a showcase for Seahawk Seniors during Homecoming Week. Satin and dozens of other senior moms (and a few dads) boogied down at the football fields at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on Sept. 20 to entertain hundreds in attendance, including their senior students and friends. (Mike Camunas)

As part of Sunlake High’s Homecoming Week festivities, each grade plans skits and performs them on the school’s football field.

Parents — mostly the moms of the senior students — also join in, coordinating dances to popular music to entertain (and possibly embarrass) their kids.

Hundreds of Sunlake High students, parents and family members came out to the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on Sept. 20 to see skits, parents dancing and touching tributes from both kids and parents, as part of the school’s Homecoming festivities.

Closing out the fun showcase, parents and family members walk the field holding giant posters, with one side showing the students’ senior portrait and the other a baby picture.

As a final act, the senior students will then line up and walk toward the parents, this time holding touching thank you and tribute posters they made, all before being sent off to their final Homecoming — which was held this year on Sept. 23.

“The school has been doing this a long, long time,” one senior mom, Kristin Satin, said. “The rain postponed it, but we were able to get to this field and make a quick pivot and it all worked out.

“This is always a lot of fun.”

Rain and bad weather had Sunlake parents shifting the venue to Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on Sept. 20, where hundreds crowded the football fields, and the showcase kicked off with each grade performing its respective skits.

Then it was the parents’ turn, as dozens of senior moms — and a few dads, some dressed as Taylor Swift — danced to songs and even had a costume change. The moms danced in matching Senior Family ’24 shirts, but then switched to shirts with their kids’ faces all over them.

“It’s a Sunlake tradition!” Satin said. “We weren’t about to miss out on tradition because of the weather. It always rains in Florida — we won’t always have our (kids’) senior (year).”

Published September 27, 2023

Sunlake High dad Rob Lamkey — or is that Taylor Swift? — performs with dozens of senior moms during a skit and showcase event at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex, as part of the school’s Homecoming Week festivities.
From left, the Mixon family — Lisa, Alyssa and Dave — honors their senior student during a Sunlake High showcase and skits as part of the school’s Homecoming Week festivities at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex.
Sunlake seniors, from left, Remley Velde, Kaitlyn Schwartz, Ashley Ridgway and Reese Meckfessel walk down the field at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on Sept. 20, holding signs thanking their parents and families with tributes from their young lives and high school memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunlake High mom Kelly McGauran, left, poses with her daughter, Ciara, for a photo following a Senior Showcase at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on Sept. 20. Parents and families walked the field with posters that had both the student’s senior portrait and baby photo on opposite sides.
Dozens of Sunlake High senior moms — and a few dads — danced away to pop songs as a fun way to entertain, and possibly embarrass, their kids at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex in connection with the school’s Homecoming festivities.
Parents of Sunlake High seniors were more than happy to dress up and dance to a few tunes at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on Sept. 20, all to send off their kids to the Homecoming Dance, which was held Sept. 23.