Piggin’ out on bacon

Students participate in annual tradition

Story by Celeste Anderson, news editor|September 2, 2016

Photo by Kayleigh Moreland

Seniors Grant Owens, Jordan Thomas and Dylan Raley cook bacon on a grill during the bacon fry. The morning before the Texas vs. Arkansas game seniors gather to prepare breakfast for the student body.

Madeline Parish

The sounds of sizzling bacon and excited voices carried through the air this morning at the school’s  annual Bacon Fry. Like always, this event is a major tradition that everyone talks about weeks after the grills have been shut down and the flag painted in the courtyard has been washed out.

“It’s an awesome way to bring all of our student body together and show our school spirit as we prepare to beat the Arkansas High team tonight,” Principal Brad Bailey said.

Seniors were the first to arrive, some coming as early as 5 a.m. carrying heavy grills, plates, cups, donuts and, most importantly, bacon.

“We’ve watched the seniors for the past three years do this and make the bacon every year, so it’s a lot of pressure to keep that up and make sure the bacon’s good and we have a lot of school spirit [to beat the hogs],” senior Dalton Dickson said. “[I got here] at 6:10 which is normal time for me because I have to go to swim practice then anyways. [The bacon fry] really sets the stage for tonight’s game and it just helps us get pumped up.”

In fact, most of the student body showed up to the bacon fry to spend more time with friends and to get excited about one of the biggest football games of the year.

“The bacon fry is a really fun thing because all of your friends come together to cook bacon on a day that has been a tradition since before any of us were even born,” said senior Cathryn Paine, “It’s just a really cool thing to be a part of.”

After the seniors arrived, juniors and underclassmen started to arrive around 7:15, flooding the courtyard with Texas flags and “beat the hog” t-shirts.

“Seniors get here really early and cook everyone else’s bacon,” junior Austin Broussard said. “It’s a pretty fun time because they play some really good music, we eat some bacon and we get pumped up for the game before school even starts.”

Even teachers got in on the fun. It gave them a chance to roam around, eat bacon and converse with other teachers and students.

“I look forward to this every year because the one thing I do better than anything else is eat,” said science teacher Bob Harris.

For seniors especially, the bacon fry was a huge responsibility.

“It is a really great bonding experience for all the seniors. Everybody comes out; everybody helps out. I mean, you can just look around and see the amount of people who are here today,” said senior class president Raga Justin. “There’s also a lot of seniors out here, a lot that I didn’t even expect to come out. It’s not just a STUCO thing, it’s a senior thing and a Texas High School thing.”

In all, the main goal of the bacon fry was to be an opportunity for the students to get together early in the school year and to celebrate with school spirit.

“It brings our whole student body together. Not just one or two groups, but the whole school,” Bailey said. “It also brings our community, our staff and our faculty together, and we just celebrate this day [as a] wonderful event for all of our students.”