Sharing with the World: Cedar Shoals Celebrates its Students Heritage
With festivities celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month happening again, Cedar Shoals High School had its own special celebration to honor Hispanic culture and traditions with a Hispanic Heritage dance party organized by Cedar’s library and dance instructor Chria Midgette’s dance leaders.
The party was filled with dance, games and food. Held in the Cedar Shoals library, the Cedar Shoals Hispanic Organization Promoting Education (HoPe) arranged a jeopardy style game, dance lessons directed by Savittree Rochanasmaita Arnold and Heather Fletcher, along with a performance of a traditional hispanic dance performed by the El Tepeyac Folkloric Dance group.
The first time Cedar’s Media Specialist Kerry Hogan suggested that Cedar have a Hispanic Heritage celebration was because she wanted the growing Hispanic community at Cedar Shoals to have a way to share their culture with the rest of the school.
“I was the person that pushed for this event, since we had a growing Hispanic population at that time. We went from basically nothing to starting to have a population. Now they’re a big part of this school and nobody questions that we should celebrate this,” Hogan said.
During the 2024-25 school year, the library hosted the celebration with the help of a student committee. This year a small committee of Cedar students including Maria Morales Flores worked together with Hogan to make the celebration happen.
“The celebration is supposed to represent our culture, share our people, the Latinos and everything that’s related,” Morales Flores said.
Junior Nathan Valdez thought the party helped recognize and appreciate his hispanic community.
“The celebration shows that the school really cares about this race, that they really care about their Hispanic students and their culture. It’s just something nice that they’re doing for us,” Valdez said.
Multiple students who were a part of this year’s committee have also helped provide their insights in previous years. Committee member Junior Perla Ramirez Muralles felt that the party went well this year.
“I also participated last year, in fact we made pupusas. I have to admit that this year it turned out much better than last year,” Ramirez Muralles said.
