Michigan City High School students celebrated Homecoming in a unique and special way this year. Early on Friday morning, tons of students and athletes poured onto Ames Field to kick off the celebration by doing something they’ve never done before: stand in formation while ABC7 Chicago’s news chopper flies overhead as part of their Friday Flyover series.
The Friday Flyover series is where ABC7’s news crew heads out to various regional schools and takes aerial photographs of students standing in formation on their football field to help celebrate their school spirit. In addition to the helicopter flyover, ABC7 also has a team on the ground to interview students and take ground-level shots of the action.
Roz Varon, ABC7 Chicago’s Traffic Anchor on WLS-TV, was having a great time getting the students hyped up not just for the flyover, but for homecoming.
“This is the kickoff to Friday Flyover,” said Varon, “We’ve been doing it for years. It’s a fabulous segment we do every fall, where each Friday we go out to local high schools, show their team spirit, they get to show off their school, their pride, and their formations.”
The Michigan City Friday Flyover, which marks the very first for ABC7 Chicago’s 2017 season, is designed to showcase students’ creativity in making the large formations- a large “MC,” the number 7, and then one where all of the students stand in formation around a large American flag held up by Michigan City’s JROTC cadets. At the end of an 8-week period of taking awesome photos of area high schools, ABC7 will post all of the pictures online together so that the public can vote on their favorite.
Varon was so excited to be covering Michigan City’s Flyover on Friday, not the least because Michigan City has been trying to get in on the Friday Flyover action for a while.
“We put it out there that we’ll be doing our Friday Flyovers and that all the schools who are interested should come to us and let us know," she explained. "Michigan City High School was extremely interested and have been trying to get out here for a while.”
While her job is to showcase each individual school’s spirit, the importance of coming out to small towns like Michigan City isn’t lost on her.
“It’s really important to get out into the community, Veron explained. “We have a huge viewership in Northwest Indiana, so we want to show everybody what’s going on in their neck of the woods.”
The students, while tired from coming to the field at 5:00am, were super excited to be out showing their school off to one of Chicagoland’s biggest news sources.
Devon Stromer, a junior at Michigan City, saw this as a unique way to celebrate his school and their athletic team.
“It’s a pretty cool event,” said Stromer. “There’s nothing really else like this that you can experience in high school.”
Steven Sebert, a Michigan City senior, saw the event as a way to bring the school together and encourage the team to win their homecoming football game against Merrillville today.
“It’s definitely a school building experience,” said Severt. “It’s cool to see everyone out cheering on the school for a good Friday game.”
Craig Shaman, Michigan City’s Athletic Director, was helping to organize the kids and help them get into formation. Shaman was a driving force on Friday, making sure ABC7 Chicago caught all of the best shots of Michigan City’s students.
“There are so many things going on in our school district,” Shaman said, "Any chance we have to get the word out about that really helps.”
Andrew Jasicki, a biology teacher at Michigan City, was an observer at the event. Jasicki saw many of his students in the crowd and was proud to see the students turn out so early in the morning.
“I’m excited as a teacher,” Jasicki said. “I think the school spirit has increased immensely. There are much students involved and I think the community is getting behind us.”
Today’s itinerary for Homecoming includes a pep rally for the students at the end of the school day featuring Power 92 Radio Station and a public parade at 6:00 going from Downtown Michigan City to Ames Field, followed by The Michigan City Wolves Vs. Merrillville Pirates football game at seven.
For more info on Michigan City High School, please visit https://www.mcas.k12.in.us/MCHS
To see ABC7’s coverage of the flyover, visit http://abc7chicago.com/sports/friday-flyover-michigan-city-high-school/2392126/