This weekend is the annual homecoming celebration at Lebanon High School, and that means a familiar slate of yearly traditions: new sweatshirts for seniors, a class photo, a pep rally and fall sports games. But one tradition will be missing from the schedule this year: the Friday night bonfire.
That’s because fire safety officials say it's too dry in Lebanon to have an open fire. Almost all of the state is in a drought, with Grafton County in particular seeing some of the most severe conditions.
Earlier this week, Gov. Kelly Ayotte issued a statewide fire ban because of the dry weather.
Typically, the senior class at Lebanon High School builds the fire together, collecting hundreds of pallets and painting custom signs. On the Friday night of homecoming weekend, they then encircle the mass of wood and light it all together.
But in the past few weeks, school and local fire officials warned students it may have to be postponed indefinitely.
"We were pretty disappointed,” said Harper Rancourt, a Lebanon High senior, describing when the class learned this week that the bonfire was not happening.
McKeanna Tevens, who serves as senior class advisor, said she’s trying her best to keep spirits high by maintaining the normal homecoming weekend schedule, just without the bonfire.
“We're really trying to keep it the same so that it doesn't feel like a total flop or disappointment at the end of the week,” she said.
She’s trying to think of creative replacements.
“When the seniors do their run into the pep rally, we might have flames projected so that there is a sense of fire and tie into the bonfire,” she said.
There has been rain this week across the region, but experts say it fell far short of what is needed to get conditions back to normal. Rancourt and her fellow classmates are eager for the weather to improve.
“There still will be a bonfire, so it's not like we're losing it completely,” she said.
