Floyd Elementary School’s ‘Clap Out’ tradition returns to Pahrump

Fun and games were the order of the day at Floyd Elementary School, as the campus’ Field Day got underway.

The annual event on Thursday, May 23, allows for faculty, and even parents, to engage in a bit of end of the year merriment.

Out of a count of roughly 570 students, at least 80 fifth graders are expected to attend middle school later this year.

Physical education instructor Lance Englund said he was pleased that many parents decided to participate as volunteers throughout the day.

“We’ve got the best parents around,” he said. “I just put the word out, and they show up. They run all of my games and help with everything. The tradition here at Floyd Elementary School is to have a field day, and all classes from kindergarten through the fifth grade go to stations.”

Mother Nature intervenes

In previous years those stations provided students with water games and competitions, unlike this year.

“Normally, we have a lot more water games, but with the cool weather and the breeze, we decided that we would do something a little different this year,” Englund said. “We just put in other games that didn’t include water and the kids had a blast. We did have a water balloon toss contest and there was musical hula hoops in the lunchroom, but the big one was the tug-of-war contest from kindergarten all the way up to the teachers. The most important thing is everybody had a lot of fun and nobody got hurt.”

Give them a hand

Floyd Principal Joe Gent spoke about the traditional “Clap Out,” where the fifth-grade students are greeted with applause by fellow students, and a few Pahrump Valley High School graduating seniors.

“The Clap Out is just a way to have a fifth-grade graduation celebration,” Gent said. “It is a tradition that we have done for years here, and the kids all look forward to it. It is also a very emotional event, especially for the fifth graders. A lot of the other kids, teachers and myself get tears in our eyes when we do it.”

Big thanks

Just like Englund, Gent, too, complimented the parents who volunteered their time for the event.

“We had close to 60 parent volunteers who came to help out with it,” he noted. “There were nine different stations this year and the kids all rotated to different events. It’s our way of celebrating the end of the school year for them. It’s like a well-oiled machine and we had many years to perfect it. We have an incredible group of parent volunteers as well as staff here. We normally have water games and we were surprised to see how cold it was here in town, so we took out all of the water games today, except for the water balloon toss contest.”

No rest and all the best

Though many faculty members will spend time relaxing during the summer, Gent said he has other plans.

“As far as how I’m going to spend my summer, I work all year-round,” he said. “I’ll spend it getting ready for next year helping the school district in any way I can. This is my last year as principal here at Floyd Elementary School because I’m going back to serve as a district administrator. I also want to say that our head clerical technician is retiring this year and she has worked with the district for many years. We are very sad to see her go and we wish her all the best.”

Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes