masked indoors because the coronavirus remains present. Masking indoors for students is strongly encourage, and masking outdoors for staff and students is optional, yet many students and staff members donned masks at the outdoor event.

The welcoming included music by the school band, flag-twirling and a group dance performed to the Cha-Cha Slide.

Associated Student Body director chair adviser and dance program Michelle Riggs said most of those welcoming students straddling the red carpet were part of the ASB, cheer and dance programs.

“All of those kids are super excited about coming out the first day, getting kids back into it,” Riggs said. “Last year was a rough year and so the fact that we can be out here excited about starting the first day is incredible.”

She said the students on the welcome wagon care about their classmates and the culture of the school and that having a great first day is important.

“If you have a quiet Day 1 where nobody gets to know each other, that kind of sets the tone for the whole year,” Riggs said. “So what these kids are able to do is bring that energy and bring that excitement about being here.”

She said the red carpet is something magical.

“You feel empowered and special that minute you walk through those gates and I think that’s something that we try to instill in all of our kids, that every single kid on this campus matters,” Riggs said.

Rallying cry

The adopted theme for this school year at is “We celebrate the past to awaken the future,” a quote from a speech made by then-Sen. John F. Kennedy in August 1960 in Hyde Park, New York, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act.

The history and longevity of the school is at the root.

“We have chosen ‘We celebrate the past to awaken the future’ as our school motto theme because there’s so much tradition here at La Puente High School,” Principal Lisa Lopez said. “It was opened in 1915, so we want to honor not only the legacy of the school, but the tradition and all of the scholars and the wonderful alumni that came through these doors and now have gone on to do amazing and wonderful things.”

She’d like her students to absorb that.

“We want them to appreciate the traditions of the school that they’re at and with that the motivation to move forward into the future and do the same things that their predecessors before them did,” Lopez said.

Senior Cynthia Cardenas, this year’s ASB president, seconds that emotion.

“I feel like we bring back our cultures we have, our traditions that we hold as a school and I feel like as an ASB member and being part of the ASB class these past four years, I feel like we’ve been able to revive those traditions,” she said. “And we can make them better, add new traditions and just basically have the school and more students involved to revive those traditions from the past to make the future better.”

Jim Lane is athletic director, yearbook adviser and history teacher at the school, so this all hits home for him.

“We get to go ahead and take a look back at all of our old traditions, bring those up and keep forging forward creating a whole new path by keeping all of our history of a school that’s now 107-ish years old,” he said. “And being a history teacher and big into the athletics here as the athletic director as well, honoring those traditions I think are very important. But we also make it a unique experience coming through these halls here for every single student that walks through here.”

As Principal Lopez said, the best way to honor tradition is for current students to become successful in their own right. Senior Alex Alvarado plans on doing just that. He started by joining ASB for the first time this year “to help out the school and become more involved with my community.”

Gazing into his crystal ball, Alvarado said his goal is to become a commercial airline pilot; his dad is an airplane mechanic. He said he must first make sure that he tackles the here and now.

“I’m excited for the future,” Alvarado said. “But at the same time, I’ve gotta be more aware of what I have to do in this moment to prepare for my future, you know? So the better I do right now in this moment, I think the better the future comes out.”

Taking in all the fun Wednesday morning was retired Army Master Sgt. Roland Souza, instructor for the school’s Army JROTC program. Like so many this day, he couldn’t stop smiling.

“This is so wonderful,” he said. “I’m so happy to be a part of it.”

He raved about the adopted motto.

“It means everything to me,” Souza said. “It means if we can continue to grow as a school, as a community, as students, it’s really, really important.”