The annual bonfire community event brings in school bonding and spirit to the people around Augusta. For the last six years, Athletic Director Josh Ybarra has contributed to the bonfire. Recently, a schedule change occurred that moved the event, which was once before sports seasons started, to homecoming week. 

“For the last three years, the Booster Club and I had been talking about potentially moving it,” Ybarra said, “the reasoning that I had was that I had never been at a school where it wasn’t during homecoming week, so having it at the beginning of the year was just kind of bizarre to me.”

The Booster Club recently lost some of its members due to them moving on and passing the torch down. Although the club is not fully staffed, current members liked the idea of hosting the bonfire during homecoming week to boost school spirit.

“It was a collaborative idea between the booster club members and myself,” Ybarra said.  “Ultimately, it was the Booster Club’s decision, with my input in a sense.” 

In the hopes of calmer weather and more members signing up, the event was changed to the later date. 

“Another selling point for this was this move allowed teams to actually have some games under their belt. When coaches get up to speak, or captains get up to speak, they can actually talk about how their season is going,” Ybarra said. 

The fire department builds the centerpiece of the community event. Ybarra keeps in contact with volunteer lieutenant Andy Hall. 

“I’ve been working with Andy Hall; he has helped with it for a number of years,” Ybarra said. “We’ve been in communication with him as far as what we need.”

These changes will not affect the location or the start time of the community event. The powder puff game will be held at Hillier Stadium and the lake peninsula. 

“It’s still going to be on a Wednesday night, so we’ll have powder puff from roughly six to seven,” Ybarra said. “We’re going to start the bonfire at 7:30 p.m., and it will be in the same location.”