Written by Alex Brooks
On March 25, 2026, Algona High School hosted their annual Superstars event. Superstars is where students of all grades compete against each other to earn the most points in each event. Each grade represents its colors with the freshmen wearing white, sophomores wearing blue, juniors wearing red, and seniors wearing black. Each grade lines up in their designated hallway to get a head count, which leads to easy points. Freshmen ended up with the most students from their grade at Superstars, with 80.8% of their grade present.
Superstars started with the opening ceremonies, which includes introducing every grade. Then the new teachers dressed up as the theme of the Superstars, Winter Olympics: Beauty in Action. Justine Hellman dressed as Michelle Kwan, and Ashley Lindquist was the snowboarder Chloe Kim. Holly Ryan was the short track speed skater Bonnie Blair. After the new teachers were announced, all of the students pledged to be fair and play right for Superstars.
After the ceremonies, the first event was dodgeball. It began with freshman boys vs senior boys; the seniors won. Next, the juniors faced the sophomores, and the juniors won. In the final match, the juniors took down the seniors, making the junior boys dodgeball champions.
The girls followed a similar format, with freshman girls defeating the seniors in the first round. Then the junior girls won against the sophomores. In the final match, the junior girls won again, making them the dodgeball champions and giving the junior class an early lead.
After dodgeball, many students competed in many drop-in games and skill-based games. The drop in games included chess, checkers, cribbage, Uno, topple, cup stacking, grand prize game, and ping pong. The sophomores won the most points in the drop-in games. They gained most of their points from the grand prize, which is where you throw a ping pong ball into a bucket at different distances. They also got the rest of their points from cup stacking and topple.
Another set of events that were played focused on strength, skill, and creativity. This set of games 
were arm wrestling, putting, bean bag toss, ledgeball, pickleball, paper airplane contest, steal the bacon, and Rubik's cube challenge. Juniors came back on top, gaining even more points against every other grade in this section. The juniors gained most of their points winning paper airplane, bean bag toss, and putting.
The final group of games before the talent show consisted of teamwork and coordination. All grades competed in human ladder, weird shuttle relay, spikeball, Euchre, chipping, truck push, and crab soccer. The juniors won for total points again in this section and started to have a giant lead over everyone else. Juniors found most of their points from spikeball, Euchre, and truck push girls.
Talent show was next; anybody can sign up and go up in front of everyone and perform anything cool or funny. Freshmen Cruz Rodert and Jackson Jansen were the first up and they made funny jokes. For the sophomore class, Jonathan Suarez danced to a song and Grace Luitjens sang a song. Juniors had only one performance, by David Kissinger, Owen Orban, and Jaxon Olmstead, who played the song “You Give Love a Bad Name.” Senior, Jozzie Beaver, sang a song and Nile Owen reenacted a part from Napoleon Dynamite.
After the talent show, the next set of events started, adding a mix of fun and competition. The events were limbo, three point contest, tire bridge, soccer, and musical chairs. Juniors dominated these sets of games, winning every one except for the tire bridge, where they placed second.
The final events to be played for Superstars that brought high energy and excitement were hungry hippos and tug of war, boys, girls, and coed. The juniors came out winning the most amount of points in those events again. Hungry hippos, girls’ tug of war, and coed tug of war is where the juniors gained their points.
All that was left for Superstars was the awards, which in 4th place was the freshmen with 251.8 points, represented by the class president Kinzee Thilges. In 3rd place was the sophomores with 257.6 points, represented by class president Oliva Sinder. In 2nd place was the seniors with 350 points, represented by class president Tate Carter. And the 2026 Superstars winners were the juniors with 450.3 points, represented by class president Abby Lampe. This was the juniors’ first time winning Superstars. As freshmen they placed 3rd, and last year, as sophomores, they placed 2nd.
Students are already looking forward to next year as Wyatt Kelly states, “Repeat?”