Night of Neon puts old tradition in new light

This year, Golden High School students put a new twist on the traditional Sadie Hawkins Dance.

A neon twist.

The dance, sponsored by GHS Student Council, was postponed from February to wait out COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. 

Known simply as Sadie’s Dance, GHS students came energized and donned their most glowing fashion items.

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Dresses, tuxedo tops, platform sneakers and eyeglasses helped transform the gymnasium into a fun and colorful evening for students to reconnect.

Hundreds of dancers showed off their best moves beneath a blacklight and laser light canopy.

Grafitti art, created by students with neon spray paint on black paper, adorned the walls and added to the festive environment.

Sadie Hawkins dances have been around since the late 1930s.

The concept is based on “Li’l Abner,” created by cartoonist Alfred Gerald Caplin, who was better known as Al Capp.

His character, Sadie Hawkins, lived in the fictional town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. The comic strip documented the girl’s multiple attempts to catch a husband.

While the storyline is often criticized by modern feminists and women’s groups, after the comic strip ran in the late 1930s, more than 200 colleges embraced the idea of abandoning traditional gender roles where boys would pursue girls.