Best decorated doors await contest results

PHOTO: The 2019 door decoration contest judges admire teacher Christopher Lee’s Hollywood themed room in L-24.

By Connor Tang,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Every year, a hyper-competitive door decoration competition pits participating fourth period classes against each other to create a vibrant door that fits the year’s theme. With a wide range of creative ideas and thought put into each door, every door has a unique story— especially Eileen Guerard’s, Kevin Williams’ and Christopher Lee’s classes.

All the participating classes aspire to win the coveted door decoration trophy, but friendly competition turned sour in Guerard’s class this Tuesday. As the judging was set to take place the next day, junior Anne Zhao proudly hung up her classes Hollywood sign to rest overnight. 

On Wednesday, Zhao and her class were shocked to find their sign stolen right off their door.

“We assumed it was vandalism,” Zhao said. “At that time we only put the words “Hollywood” on it, we didn’t put any sort of phrase that might’ve offended someone.”

However, the vandal’s intentions are still speculations since “our poster was lacking compared to [other classrooms], so the perpetrator could have just deemed our poster too unattractive to stay on her door.”

True to the spirit of Homecoming competition, Guerard’s class was far from giving up. “The second time we made the poster, everyone in the class contributed to make it even better than the first one we rushed to make” Zhao said.

For junior Sophia Davis, door decoration with Williams had an unexpected start.

“At some point, our class heard that the junior theme for hoco was western, so we thought our door would stand out if we created a whole scene focusing on that,” Davis said. “Once we heard about it, we came up with so many ideas for a western-themed door that we couldn’t let go of that theme.”

Davis’ class ended up having one of the most unique doors in the entire school. While most doors had the iconic Hollywood sign and theatre, Mr. Williams’ classroom sported a full western saloon with cut-out cacti, a walk-in root-beer float bar, a plush donkey companion and live tumbleweeds. 

Starting only a day before the deadline on Wednesday, Oct. 9, Lee’s fourth period began their door when most classes had placed their finishing touch. However, L-14’s late start did not hinder their creative process.

 “I think my class came up with great ideas for our door dec… even as we worked, new ideas were added and if there were some people who liked it, [we] made it happen,” junior Alex Gao said. “I think our door is exceptional and has a good chance we will win.” 

Gao’s class donned the largest Hollywood sign of all the doors, utilizing their large overhang to create a puntastic “HolLEEwood” sign.

Underneath the overhang, full size movie posters as well as older classics with Lee’s face photoshopped in were placed on the windows. As door decoration judges from Student Government filled the room, they were greeted with a bag of paper popcorn and movie tickets, and proceeded to the walk of fame, red carpet and “Ghostbusters” playing inside the classroom.

“Dude, we put so much effort into that door dec, I’m going to be bummed if we lose,” junior Frankie Saraniti said.

While the students waited for results to come out, Lee guaranteed his students a pizza party regardless of the outcome. “I’m so hyped to get pizza anyways I feel like with all the effort we put in we really deserve it,” Saraniti said.