High school to host 'orange out' night on Friday

Mountain Home High School will be hosting an Orange Out Night this Friday night during the Mountain Home Lady Tigers basketball game against Gooding in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home High School Activities Director and Assistant Principal Mark Cotton indicated the Orange Out Night is an offshoot of the school's Black Out Committee.

"Our committee came together last winter as a grassroots effort to boost attendance and school pride at athletic events," the coach said. "Our goal was to raise enough money to have Black Out shirts made for all students and teachers at Mountain Home High School and Bennett Mountain High School.

"Over the course three weeks, we were able to raise over $5,000 and meet our goal of outfitting those students and teachers," the coach added. Once everyone received a shirt, we put on Black Out Nights at athletic events. Those events had a critical impact on our student body's school pride last year, and we wanted to build on that this year."

Cotton said this year their fundraising efforts included selling 3'x5' Tiger Flags, which were donated by LPL Financial. They raised enough money to buy 1,400 Orange Out shirts.

Every Mountain Home High School and Bennett Mountain High School student and teacher will receive the Orange Out shirts, which will allow all students and staff wearing them to get in free to Orange Out events.

The first Orange Out Night is set for Friday night as the Lady Tigers take on Gooding in girls basketball.

"Our number one goal with this project is to pack the gym even tighter than we did last year," said Cotton. "Last year was a phenomenal environment, and we want to keep building on it.

"I would like to invite all of our community members to show up to our Orange Out games and see what it is all about," he added. "This is a great opportunity for us to all come together and start our basketball season off on the right foot,"

Cotton said Orange Out shirts will be for sale at Friday night's game for $10. Once the Orange Out shirt is purchased, it will get the person in to any Orange Out event free of charge.

"Another thing to note is that our Orange Out Committee is putting on a canned food drive this week, which will culminate at our first Orange Out game," added Cotton.

"All fans are encouraged to bring canned food items to the game to help the cause."

Other Orange Out dates scheduled for this school year are Dec. 5 (boys basketball), Jan. 15 (girls basketball), Jan. 27 (wrestling), Feb. 11 (boys basketball), April 28 (softball) and May 1 (baseball).