Over the past few years with the pandemic BSM students and faculty have found the overall spirit of the community to be a bit lackluster. To address this issue, the marketing department partnered with student leaders from Link Crew and student council to teach the entire student body the school rouser during homeroom in three days, April 19th through the 21st.

Before the pandemic, school spirit was a noteworthy characteristic of the BSM community and highlighted the strong bond among red knights. “From conversations with students throughout the year and what other leaders in the building have heard, we were thinking of what we could do to try to bring back that school spirit because, up until 2020, I think a lot of people would say that the school spirit at BSM was kind of a defining characteristic of what the what we kind of offered here is just everyone’s excited to to be a Red Knight,” Marketing department head Eden Garman said.

The BSM rouser has been around for years and captures the rich history of the school. “The song connects current students with BSM alumni who came before them. BSM’s Rouser brought students together when it was created in 1974, and it accomplishes the same goal today. The song is a rich tradition that school leaders and student leaders wanted to keep strong,” Garman said in a follow-up email.

The goal of the re-learning program was to teach the entire student body the school song so that they can sing it at sporting events, school gatherings, and more. “The goal is to familiarize current students with the school song, so they can proudly sing at various events and feel connected to one another as Red Knights. When students reunite for their 50 year reunions, they’ll still be able to burst out in song. Plus, it’s just a neat way to demonstrate our spirit to the greater community,” Garman said.

In order to carry out the program, spirit teams were created, consisting of three to seven student leaders and one adult supervisor that went around to homerooms to teach students the rouser. “We would go into the homerooms and we would talk about the history of the school rouser and how it came to be, and then we would play an old video of the school rouser. We would have them sing along to the lyrics, and we would send a little reminder that on April 27th we are going to sing the school rouser after mass,” spirit team member Jillian Petty said.

During homeroom on Monday, April 25th, the entire school gathered to practice the school rouse before the culminating school rouser video was filmed after mass on Wednesday, April 27th. “We were able to capture some great content, so I think we’ll have a fun video to share what really showcases the Red Knight spirit…Monday’s practice really helped, and it was fun to see the senior girls sporting their overalls and really taking ownership of bringing school spirit to life…We hope to share the video in the coming weeks as a way to celebrate our community and keep the BSM Rouser alive for many many years to come,” Garman said.