When principal Mandy Hughes started working at Glenbrook North, she tried learning different school songs. After watching the “GBN Fight Song” video from the Class of 2012 many times to learn the lyrics, Hughes loved the concept of using a video as a way to help teach or reinforce important concepts in the school.
“I was thinking it would be really nice if we could update [the video] to reflect some of the current spaces in our school, our current students in our school and just kind of reinvigorate [students] around the fight song,” Hughes said.
The Student Association Executive Board has filmed an updated version of the song, featuring nearly 20 clubs, sports teams and other student groups each singing a short section.
The fight song is used at athletic events, assemblies and can be a rallying point to unite the GBN community, Hughes said.
According to DECA co-president Sushant Medikondla, filming DECA’s portion of the video was very chaotic because the club had about 100 people to gather around, but we were happy with the final product.
“I think it was really cool to see everyone get involved in school spirit,” said Medikondla. “I know in past assemblies and everything not everyone is singing [the fight song]. But in DECA, since we’re just singing the short line, everyone’s able to participate. And I thought it was really cool how we all kind of united over that song.”
The video is also intended to teach the student body the lyrics of the fight song.
“When the fight song is played … you just hear people clapping,” said Hughes. “The participation of clapping is one level. I think that when you can learn the lyrics to the song and you can all join in together, it helps . . . create a common experience for all of us to really show support to our school.”
The video is scheduled to be shown at the Loyalty Day Assembly on Jan. 23 and posted on social media afterward.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to get involved [and] show our school spirit,” said Medikondla. “[SA board is] involving everyone in the school, so it’s a way for you to show your club’s existence and participation in the school setting.”
According to Hughes, she would love to see the video used at freshman orientation, in Spartan Seminar classes and at the start of major spirit weeks.
Hughes loves that students are picking up the video’s cause and making it their own, Hughes said.
“That’s ideally what I want to see about these different elements of our school culture,” Hughes said.
“My vision is … that we can have it be viewed lots of times by our students, to the point where, once we get to the end of the year, everyone is singing all the words of the fight song,” Hughes said.