By Josie Johnson, staff writer

Students get excited each year for a week packed full of events that bring out school spirit and pride throughout the whole community.

“Homecoming is by far my favorite part of the year” said Abby Deal ‘17.

The dance is what many students look forward to the most. A lot of time and money goes into planning it. The songs played at the dance are a big part of what sets the tone for the entire time. The DJ, Matthew Ervin, tries his best to make the dance enjoyable for everyone.

“With both the music and lighting I am hoping to strike a balance that creates a fun and festive party atmosphere for the students, but also one that the school staff and chaperones can be comfortable with.” said Ervin.

However, this year’s dance did not live up to many people’s expectations regarding the song selection. Students think music needs to be relevant to them.

“I think we need to hire a different and younger DJ because he has been playing the same songs for three years and no one knew half of them,” said Maddy Sterner ‘18.

Plainwell Student Senate is in charge of planning all homecoming week activities including the dance. They have used the same DJ for many years and in the past he has done a great job of playing a wide variety of music from today’s top hits to classic throwbacks.

“He didn’t play any new music the entire night, and most of the songs are songs you can’t dance to,” said Makenzie Hoffman ‘17.

Student Senate Secretary Meagan Tran was the overseer of the dance this fall. Tran submitted a song list for the DJ and was under the impression that he would follow it accordingly, but was not satisfied when he allegedly disregard half of the list.

“He only played half my list. I would not suggest we use him for future dances,” said Tran ‘18.

There are more things about the order of music that go into deciding what songs to play at a dance or event to make it successful.

“I played over 90 percent of the music given to me by the student senate, but there were a few songs I skipped because there were multiple songs by the same artist (The Chainsmokers and Twenty One Pilots come to mind) and so I just chose 1 song to represent those requests so I could play a wider variety of recording artists throughout the night, deejaying isn’t just making a playlist and hitting go, it is blending together musical variety, style and tempo and catering to the crowd of that evening,” said Ervin.

The senate snowcoming committee will make the final decision as to whether they will continue to use Spectrum DJ Service.