1999 Sports Festival
Blessed by beautiful weather on September 12,
we had a wonderful Sports Festival!　　　

This year's theme was
１９９９年今を駆けるのは 君と僕！！



At the end of the first term, each homeroom class elected sports festival coordinators. During the summer vacation, these student coordinators planned the festival. Having organized a large part of the festival themselves, the students can hold great pride in its success!

The student coordinators scheduled and led sports festival practice,
while the teachers supplied support and guidance.
This year, the PTA organized a discount bazaar for school supplies and participated in the tug-of war and relay race competitions.　　

How does the Sports Festival work?
All of the students are divided into teams, according to the number of their homeroom class. There are 3 grade levels in Japanese junior highs, 7th, 8th and 9th grades. Since each grade level is divided up into 4 homeroom classes, there were four teams. Each team consisted of members from each of the three grade levels.　The students compete in various competitions, relay races, tug of war, obstacle courses, and a few others that I can't think of a name for in English. The students gain points through the events and these points are tallied to their team's points. The team with the most points at the end of the Festival wins.
There was also a relay race in which teacher teams competed with the PTA team, and a Tug-of-War for the PTA.

The girls are battling in what is literally translated as a "horse-riding war". The goal is to remove your opponent's hat before they get to yours!	The PTA Tug of War. Whose parents are strongest?
	Everyone cheered the most for the relay races. Each grade level had a separate relay race, in which the homeroom classes formed competing teams. Last year, each homeroom class chose runners to represent them in the race. This year, the relay was made a true group effort by requiring everyone to run in this event titled, "Let's all run together!"　 　Since this event counted for points, students in all grade levels cheered for the members of their team. 　The Teachers vs PTA relay also rallied loud cheers.
	This event, called "ESSA SA" may be a strange sight to the foreigner. All of the boys assume the same stance. They then display their masculinity by making slow, and deliberate movements while synchronously cheering, "ESSA SA!" Last year, the boys strongly voiced that they wanted to do this event. The boys put even more power into their voices when they hear the girls say, "They're so cool!"
	Perhaps, the climatic event of the Sports Festival! 　The boys made a 6 level human pyramid and a 4 level human tower. The picture on the left shows the students doing a Naka-cho Junior High original event. Performed to a famous Japanese artist's hit song, "Like a River's Flow," the boys try to recreate a river.
	All of the girls performed a dance, "Naka-cho's Flowers",that was choreographed by a group of student coordinators. The 9th student leaders gathered the 200 girls and taught them the dance, without the teacher's help. Some of the 8th graders are already interested in leading the dance in the next Sports Festival.
PTA Discount Bazaar for School Supplies	The Student Council's Educational Support Group collect donations
Thanks to the cooperation of many people, the PTA was able to gather second-hand school uniforms, including pants, tops, skirts, P.E. wear and bags and sell them for about 300 yen each ( about $3.00). People who were in need of such supplies were very happy thankful for the bazaar. We will contribute the proceeds to the PTA funds. Thank you very much foryour help.	The Student Council's Educational Support Group collected donations from the families, visitors, and teachers who came to the Sports Festival. Thanks to everyone's cooperations, they were able to collect about $400 that day. They donated the funds to the town's Welfare Group. Thank you very much for your contributions. Below is a picture of our mayor, Mr. Shimizu, donating money. We apologize for the poor picture.

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