Sammy’s Coming!

Hope Fahler (‘26), Staff Writer.

In the middle of the night on Sunday, September 15, Paige Ortloff (‘26) was sound asleep when all of a sudden, a group of her classmates came barging through her door, blasting music, yelling at her, and filming the interaction. For the second year in a row, Casady’s student council started Homecoming week with their new tradition of “Sammy’s Coming,” in which they woke up various students to get people excited for the upcoming week’s festivities.

Following the success of last year’s event, the student council knew they had to continue the tradition of going house to house to surprise students. With homecoming only a month into the school year, planning had to begin in the summer.

“It’s a pretty hard process to get approved, get all the parents called,” explains student council Vice President Robert Evans (‘25). After the proposal for Sammy’s Coming was passed through administration and approved, students were randomly selected, their parents were called for approval, and a detailed map and schedule of houses was made. 

One of the most important characteristics of this event is its aspect of surprise. Last year, students had no idea what the student council had planned, but this year, some expected it. Each member of StuCo was sworn to secrecy, and whenever another student asked, they denied the existence of the event for this year. 

“We did kind of push the idea that it did not get approved again because of some things that happened in last year’s Sammy’s Coming,” says Evans. Luckily, many people had forgotten about the event, and others believed the student council’s false claims.

So, at 2 am on September 15, student council members met at school and departed on two buses to wake up their classmates. Across the two buses, over a dozen houses were visited, and because many of those houses contained siblings, even more students were woken up. One of these students was Paige Ortloff. 

“I was definitely really scared at first,” she describes. “I didn’t know what was going on. My eyes hadn’t really adjusted so I didn’t recognize anyone.” After a few seconds of processing, she pieced together what was happening. “After I recognized everyone, it was actually really funny… I think it’s a really cool tradition that we’ve started.”

Many students had similar reactions, and they were all recorded. Kate Craine (‘26) and Suleiman Mansoor (‘26), Co-Public Relations Chairs, filmed each student, and the clips were edited into a video, which was shown in chapel the following day.

This event would not have been possible without the help of many StuCo sponsors, specifically Mrs. Russel and Mrs. Dawkins, who also were up through the night driving students from house to house.

As one of the chaperones, Mrs. Dawkins describes her role as simply driving the buses and making sure everything went well, which she enjoyed doing. “It was all fun… It’s always fun to listen to everybody get excited about doing this, and it was actually a little entertaining watching these guys wake people up,” she says. 

This year’s Sammy’s Coming started off Homecoming week strong, and was the perfect way to get the student body excited. With its success this year, the student council looks to improve on it next year, as well as find new, creative ways to keep it a surprise.