After months of planning and preparation, Link Crew and Student Council members worked together to organize a school-wide lip dub on March 13 to raise awareness for mental health.
According to Lip Dub commissioner Gabe Longenecker, a lip dub is a school event where “the whole school is lining the hallways with [lip] dubbers that are lip syncing lyrics to a song down the aisle.”
“It’s meant to foster school spirit or to spread a message,” Longenecker said. The last [lip dub] was for childhood cancer, and this one is for mental health awareness.”
Natasha Bedingfield’s 2004 song “Unwritten” was chosen as this year’s lip dub song.
For Student Council president Maya Bernhauser, everyone on the committee wanted to find a song that represented the mental health aspect of the dub.
“I feel like everyone knows lyrics and they are easy to learn,” Bernhauser said. “It is a good message of being able to write your own story and [knowing] you can rewrite it after a bad day or a bad time.”
Technology education teacher Brian Ruth shared a similar outlook.
“Each time we do these lip dubs, it has a very strong meaning, like with the last one, [in 2014] the message was ‘be brave,’” Ruth said. “The song was ‘Brave’ by Sara Bareilles, and it was about raising money for children’s cancer. And then for this one, the song is ‘Unwritten’, and it has the meaning that the rest of your life is unwritten. You are the one that is in control.”
According to Longenecker, the lip dub was composed of 38 student dubbers, three teachers and two administrators, with the rest of the student body lining the hallways.
Bernhauser said that throughout each section of the lip dub, the dubbers were upperclassmen chosen to represent each participating club and sport.
“Each club and sport had a section and we picked people that were upperclassmen to represent [each one],” Bernhauser said. “Then students on the side for each club, they are in their uniforms or club t-shirts, and if you’re not in a club or sport, you’ll go to the gym. So that’s how we got everyone involved.”
Math teacher Tara Halikiopoulos was one of the teachers selected to participate as a dubber.
For Halikiopoulos, she felt as excited to participate in the lip dub this year as she did in the original.
“I was lucky enough to be chosen to do it again and I feel like it’s awesome for me to have this experience twice,” Halikiopoulos said. “What a legacy this is for anyone who’s involved in it because this is going to be something that we’re going to show maybe in another 12 years and then do another one. I feel like it’s such a great experience for our students now to be able to be a part of.”
According to Ruth, the route of the lip dub was configured “to highlight a couple events that are going on in the school in the next two weeks” with all of the students ending up in the gymnasium for the “final shot.”
“The route starts in the language hallway, then through the auditorium because they wanted to show the set and all the cast there for the musical, [‘Newsies],’” Ruth said. “After that, they’re heading down the art hallway to highlight Art and Soul.”
For Bernhauser, she was excited to see the “final product come together.”
“My hope is for it to have the same reputation it had in 2014 and to see more school spirit and participation,” Bernhauser said.