Gallery • 4 Photos

Photo taken by Tehreem Shahab

In an attempt to promote staying on campus to be more environmentally friendly, Student Congress’s School Enhancement Committee created Stay Day around 30 years ago. Every year the event happens once a semester. With the homecoming parade this Wednesday and the football game on Friday, the fall semester Stay Day will be on Thursday, Oct. 24. School Enhancement chairmen senior Austin Beaver and junior Bailey Patterson are in charge of the event.“It’s also a day about school pride,” Beaver said. “So it’s kind of just like hyping up for Homecoming.”

On Stay Day, clubs and organization, including all the other Student Congress committees, set up booths to sell food and drinks during both lunches. Vendors are also invited and in previous years places like Dippin’ Dots, Chick-fil-a and Panda Express came. This year brings new vendors including Quaker Steak and Lube, Fajita Pete’s and Paciugo Gelato.

“We didn’t plan a booth this year since we have a lot to do working with the whole thing,” Patterson said. “But all the Student Congress officers have their own booths and stuff. There is going to be a pie-in-the-face booth for the Homecoming nominees, there is a trail mix one, s’mores and one group not in StuCo, is doing chili dogs. The Plano jazz band is also playing.”

Although Stay Day is a day for students to enjoy themselves and hang out on campus, vendors face some issues. In order to sell a food permit must be acquired and pass a city health inspector’s check during the event.

“Last year there were root beer floats and we didn’t have a food permit, which was free, but it was hard to get because we didn’t have hair nets  or something like that, so that got closed down,” Beaver said. “It’s just really stressful to coordinate all these different places to come out at once and clean up and set up.”

Other issues that arose last year were unexpected weather and students who left campus anyway after getting food. While weather is uncontrollable, Beaver and Patterson came up with a solution to students that continue to leave campus that they plan to implement this week.

“Last year, we planned a long time ahead and it ended up being really cold on the spring Stay Day,” Beaver said. “This year, we’re going to have tables on campus in the middle of all the vendors so students stay on campus.”

According to Patterson, Vines had a similar event so Stay Day is not a new idea to juniors. However, both chairmen have something to look forward to.

“I don’t know if I have a favorite part, I love all of it,” Beaver said. “It’s just so much fun to see so many friends and people that I see on campus just stay and teachers stay. It’s something I love to coordinate.”