By Emily Carroll and Valeria Araujo – News Editors

Jonathan Law held a pep rally on March 31 to celebrate “March Madness” and to help a fellow student in need.

In the spirit of being #lawmazing, Law came together in support of senior Maddie Sweedler who is going through treatments for leukemia in Pennsylvania. The pep rall also celebrated the accomplishments of Law’s sports teams, clubs, and activities.

“What we are trying to do is bring together the whole idea about being #lawmazing; it’s a celebration of everything,” principal Mr. Thompson said. “Most schools have pep rallies which are all about  sports but what we celebrated was everything else that we do in the law community like the color guard, the dance team, the band, everything.”

One of the many positive aspects about the pep rally was the amount of excitement the crowds of students had to support and celebrate their school.

Some students teachers and other faculty members came up with the idea of having this pep rally to help Sweedler and to keep spirit alive after the “Winter Blues” pep rally.  

“When we were planning the pep rally, we talked about exploring new things because mostly pep rallies are solely about sports, but since we have so many different clubs and afterschool activities at Jonathan Law, we wanted to try and tie everything in together,” athletic director Mr. Sarullo said. “Unfortunately we couldn’t get to all clubs in 45 minutes but we tried to include as many as possible.”

Many students helped make the “March Madness For Maddie” pep rally a day to remember, including senior Ian Hugo, who MC’ed the entire event, and junior Ben Waters who DJ’ed. The Dance Team performed for the crowd, the Unified Sports team played basketball, and there were many basketball-themed contests and games.

One event that had everyone reeling was the Bobo contest, which featured Thompson’s dog. Sixty-four students (16 from each grade) were chosen from the hundreds who bought raffle tickets in the week leading up to the rally.

The field of 64 students was narrowed down each day and the final eight contestants were awarded a tennis ball to be used in the Bobo contest. After a frantic run down the court, Bobo chose the tennis ball belonging to freshman Erin Goodwin.

“I was really excited because I knew it was for a good cause after (assistant principal) Mrs. Drew explained Maddie’s story, it was really touching,” Goodwin said. “It’s cool that I won but participating made me feel good.”

Goodwin won the opportunity to “Principal For The Day” and won a catered lunch for her and seven friends. Overall, $1,500 was raised to benefit the Sweedler family.

“I knew the minute that we had our class meetings that our students and staff would come together to support a member of our Law family,” Drew said. “We had so many students volunteer to help sell tickets for the raffle, and so many groups agreed to perform at the pep rally.”

Teachers and students alike enjoyed the rally and were impressed with how much spirit the school showed.

“I have worked in three high schools and Law is a special place,” physical education teacher Mrs. Blude said. “We have talented students, including Ian as the MC, and you cannot compare what we have to other schools.”