The commons and athletics areas in the high school have been covered with custom-fit decals depicting Spartan heads and school phrases in a variety of fonts. It’s all part of two separate projects initiated by activities director Ella Olson and food service director Jamie Wilson.

“There was something missing,” Wilson said. He was reflecting on the appearance of the commons area, filled with grey brick facades and blank columns. “… it just felt like that common area needed something.”

The solution was to treat the monotonous walls, doors and pillars like blank canvases and opportunities to show off that spartan pride.

Olson said a company approached the high school and mentioned they were doing a similar project for a nearby school. They asked if they could come and do some mockups.

“It was really cool,” Olson said. “They came in, took pictures of everything, and then like inlaid it. So before I even ordered it, I knew what that wall was going to look like. I knew what my office was going to look like because they put it in computerized. So it was an easy decision, like ‘yeah, let’s do it.’”

The decals were installed on the gym doors, activities director’s office and athletics area in July 2021. This project was Wilson’s inspiration for initiating the project for the commons space. 

“When I came in after Ella Olson, I had seen the gymnasium doors and a couple of things that they had done down by the Activities Director entrance, I thought that was great,” Wilson said. “When I saw that they had completed that, it really felt like something we wanted to do.”

The company returned to take some measurements and tailor-fit the graphics to the space. There were many different surfaces in the commons to cover.

Wilson wanted the decals to continue with the theme of the decals from the previous project. While maintaining this theme, he wanted to add some things to the commons project.

“Coach Bob DeMeyer and his ‘One Team, One Fight’ motto… To me, that’s about us as food service as well as it is about teachers and students and football. I don’t feel like we are just food service – we’re a big team,” Wilson said. This motto: ‘One Team, One Fight’ fills one of the walls that many pass by daily.

The decals in the commons area were installed in the first week of September 2021.

Freshman Aurora Revering likes the appearance of the decals. She thinks that they can be “a lot” but she understands that they represent school pride as well. Freshman Jade Bonner also likes the “festive” decals.