In the early morning on Saturday, August 5, cars began to trickle into the school parking lot for the annual Hyacinthia. Many students came armed with shovels, rakes, and gardening gloves. The students were divided into groups to help clean up and refresh the Battle grounds for the upcoming school year.

The Hyacinthia Festival is an ancient tradition that started with the Spartans of Greece and was a celebration of greening the earth. At Battle, they get to use the chance to celebrate our school and give back.

Daylin Huebotter, a senior on the cross country team, banded together with a mixture of volleyball players, Battle parents, and teachers to clean up the faculty parking lot. A majority of their time was spent on the main entrance to Battle with pulling weeds and adding mulch to the area.

Huebotter has a lot of school spirit and is proud to be a Battle Spartan: “I decided to help out at the Hyacinthia because I wanted to help make our school look the best it can so when other people come to our school they get a good first impression right off the bat.” Huebotter and some of her other teammates stayed at school after their grueling early morning practice to welcome all the new students and visitors with a charming and clean school.

Cross Country was not the only team represented at the Hyacinthia; the football, softball, cheer, baseball, and soccer teams were also all in attendance. Conner Flatt, a senior soccer player, worked hard with his team to clean up the student parking lot before their mid day practice. The team worked to pick up litter and to beautify the mulch beds surrounding the lot. During the event, Flatt was seen encouraging his fellow teammates and helping out wherever he could.

Flatt said, “Although the soccer team is small we still worked very hard to clean up the parking lot because we wanted to give back to our school because that’s our duty as Battle Spartans.” Flatt and his teammates went on to discuss the benefits of going to a school with not only a great atmosphere but a great environment.

The baseball and cheer teams banded together to fix up the first roundabout on Lake of the Woods. They were faced with the daunting task of pulling out all the weeds that had grown over the summer and adding new mulch to the roundabout. Many sports teams volunteer their time throughout the school year to weed the roundabout.

After a morning full of hard work from many of the sports teams and their parents the groups retired to the student entrance of Battle High School for a light lunch provided by the Spartan Alliance.