h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I often wondered that myself until I asked someone. The football players are "coming home" after some away games. It's really stupid, just an excuse for a dance.

That one's been bugging me for ages!

Me too. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard...but that's United Statesia for you.

Here's one:

Does the Priciple (Principal?) really make announcements over a PA system?

Depends on a lot of things. First, you have to have a PA system. My high school was covered with portable classrooms that couldn't be integrated into a PA. Since you couldn't reach the majority of classrooms, it fell into disuse. If someone needed an office summons and they were in a portable classroom, some student office assistants acted as runners to carry a message to the class. In the science (or math, or English, or whatever) building, however, there was a teacher's lounge with a phone, and you could usually count on someone from the teacher's staff being in there during their conference period (our teachers each had a different hour without a class which they could use for prep or for holding parent-teacher conferences). The office could call the building, and the teacher would poke their head into the appropriate class and pass on the message.

It also depends on the announcement. General announcements are usually delegated to an office assistant (not a student, a professional... still called secretaries back then, but one must now watch out for the P-C nazis). Only when it is it of importance that the principal comes on.

One such time was when I was in elementary school, and the principal had announced that a national day of mourning had been declared, and school was cancelled for the rest of the day. That was the morning of the space shuttle Challenger explosion.

The principal does make announcements at the end of the day, but in the mornings we have an "announcement team" of students that does it instead.

Actually, homecoming is usually a celebration for alumni! They have a parade, kings and queens, a football game, and a big party.