Sweaty palms and shaky legs accompanied by anxious chatter and nervous laughter kick Jefferson’s asking week off with a bang. Whether you are asking or simply watching, the week is filled with excitement and spirit. One of the most celebrated traditions of Jefferson, students plan grandiose proposals to ask another student to be their date to homecoming– dubbed “hoco”. To previously virtual students, these Jefferson customs are unfamiliar territory. Surprisingly, incoming underclassmen like sophomore Ella Kim have been quick to adjust to the nerve-wracking but festive askings.
Unlike the myriad of Jefferson students jumping at the opportunity to ask their partners to homecoming, Kim took on a more unique job. Creating a majority of the posters for sophomore class askings, Kim spent a great deal of time dedicated to her work.
“Since I’m not doing much for homecoming this year, making posters is sort of my tribute to sophomore 2021 homecoming. It started with some mutual friends asking me to make posters for them, and eventually, I became the ‘poster person’,” Kim said.
Free of charge, Kim’s posters were made entirely with her own resources. Not only did Kim spend money on her posters, but she has put hours of meticulous work into producing them.
“It [creating posters] took so many hours. The process took around an hour for each poster, and I made around sixteen posters– it definitely took a lot of time out of my day,” Kim said. “Lucky for me, creating posters follows the same sort of process: planning on printer paper, measuring out the words and pictures, and finally coloring it with markers.”

Additionally, artistic freedom heavily played into the success of Kim’s posters. Since most of the students that are asking tend to not focus on the hoco posters themselves, Kim sometimes receives as little as a short sentence that details the wanted theme and quote for the poster.
“Usually, the students who ask don’t have much planned for the posters. I basically get all creative freedom which opens up the table to a lot of great ideas,” Kim said. “I like to incorporate pictures into words.”
For example, sophomore George Evanisko’s homecoming asking incorporated a baking aspect with a quote – “I’m no baker, but do you want to turn up the heat at hoco?”

“When I saw the poster the morning before the asking, I thought it was cool that Ella used the baking theme and added fire to the word ‘heat’. If it was me, I might’ve just drawn a bunch of cookies around the words,” Evanisko said.
For many askers, it is not only calming to know that there are friends there to support, but it also takes a lot of stress off their hands.
“Initially, I had no clue how to start planning the poster for my asking. Then, Ella came in and offered to help make the poster for me– that kind of saved me,” Evanisko said. “I thought the end result looked really good with all the details tied together. Honestly, I was surprised with it, especially because she did it for free and because it was super impressive.”
As the asking week concludes, Kim can finally relax from continuously bringing in giant rolled up pieces of paper for her classmates. After experiencing the feeling of accomplishment, Kim plans to open up her service for next year’s homecoming askings.
“It’s super fun to watch people’s faces light up when they see an entire poster dedicated to them,” Kim said. “It’s definitely worth it– especially the good ones [posters]. A few of them didn’t turn out as well as I hoped, but you win some and you lose some.”