"Take the J Train"

The Homecoming pep rally is a time-honored tradition in American high schools. Bands, cheerleaders, dance teams, and athletes perform for cheering crowds of students sporting colorful t-shirts and waving banners and signs. Pep rallies are loud, boistrous, and, above all, joyous occasions for students and staff alike to demonstrate their school spirit, filling the school gym with color, sound, and enthusiasm.

Getting to the pep rally is usually easy; everyone walks down the hall to the gym, the center of many school events. No big deal, right? But what if your school gym is more than five miles away on the other side of town? And what if you need to move almost a thousand students and staff to the gym for this terrific event? It would take a fleet of 20 or more busses to accomplish the move. Or, you can take the "Spirit Express."

Jones College Prep is on State Street in downtown Chicago, and just outside our gate is the CTA "Red Line" subway station. Each year Jones charters a CTA subway train, christened the "Spirit Express" for the occasion, to take us all to our gym facility at the former Near North high school campus on the other side of downtown. Taking the train is not a novelty for our students, as most of them take public transportation to school. Taking the train with 800 of your closest friends is something else entirely.

An old travel slogan once proclaimed, "Getting there is half the fun!" While the "Spirit Express" is no cruise line, the fun of our Homecoming pep rally begins on the subway platform.