On Sunday Dec. 15 the junior class traveled back to the 1920s by attending 20’s Night, an event held for juniors to celebrate The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald as well as the roaring 20’s.

The event was was held in the PMS multipurpose room from 5 to 7 PM and consisted of 20’s style dancing lessons, a poetry reading competition, a costume contest, and a dance competition. Students received credit in their English and history classes for attending the event, as well as extra credit points for participating in the contests.

History teacher Courtney Goen said that she thought the night was a success. Goen said that she liked the plan in which the dancing lesson was broken up into pieces, with the contests taking place in between each lesson segment.

“It seemed like most people were having fun and that they were into it, some more than others, but I walked away thinking it was successful,” Goen said.

Swing dance instructor Hep Jen was one of two dance instructors who led the junior class in learning 20’s style dance moves. Jen said that she thought the event went very well.

“I think it was a bit smoother run this year,” Jen said. “Last year was a sort of test run and this year everything kept moving.”

As well as learning to dance, students got the opportunity to participate in three competitions: a poetry reading contest, a costume contest, and a dance contest.

Junior Sophie Nadler was the female winner of the poetry contest, and she placed in the top five in the costume contest. For the poetry reading contest, Nadler recited The Ballad of the Landlords by Langston Hughes, which she spent an hour preparing for prior to the event.

“I was surprised because everybody seemed to really like it,” Nadler said. “It was cool that people liked it and it was cool winning.”

For her costume, Nadler dressed up as Amelia Earhart and her airplane with junior Claire O’Connor. Nadler and O’Connor both dressed up as pilots and spent a day creating a cardboard airplane.

“We got a bunch of boxes that they leave outside of the school and painted and decorated them,” Nadler said. “It took a really long time.”

Nadler said that she thought 20’s night was a fun experience and advises future juniors to try to be creative with their costumes.

“If you can be creative then be creative because it was fun for us to do something different,” Nadler said. “We put a lot of work into it and even though we didn’t win it was really fun.”

Junior Walter le Duy was one of two male winners of the costume contest, tying with junior Scott Ng. Le Duy dressed up as a 1920s traveling salesman, putting his costume together with things he found around his house.

“I did not expect to win the contest,” le Duy said. “To be honest I did not expect to enter.”

Le Duy said that he spent an hour putting together his costume, consisting of a 50-year-old 20’s replica briefcase, boater had, and mismatched suit. He said that he advises future juniors to plan ahead and prepare their costumes in advance.

“Most people probably wouldn’t get lucky like I did,” le Duy said.

Le Duy said that he found 20’s Night to be more pleasant than he had expected and overall had a good time at the event.

“Just have fun with it,” le Duy said. “Don’t approach it too cynically and don’t approach it too apathetically, just enjoy it.”

As well as the poetry and costume competition, there was also a dance competition at the end of the night for students to show off their 20’s dancing. Juniors Amy Kelleher and Jo Ireland participated and won the dance competition. Kelleher and Ireland said that although they did not expect to win, they went into the night with a goal to try win the dance competition.

“I was looking forward to it the whole night,” Ireland said. “It just wanted to pop out those dance moves and work it.”

Kelleher said that the dance competition was her favorite part.She said that she advises future juniors to approach the event with an open mind.

“I think a lot of people went in with a really crummy, bad attitude,” Kelleher said. “But we went in thinking ‘this is gonna be great’ and we had a good time.”

Note: The article was updated on December 19 from an earlier version posted on December 16 in correction to the results of the costume contest.