De Soto High School will be holding its second annual Fall Festival on Aug. 24 to launch the school year off and promote the fall sports teams.

At the event, the cross country team, the football team, the girls’ golf team, the girls’ tennis team, the boys’ soccer team and the girls’ volleyball team will be holding activities for children to participate in.

Athletic Director Ryan Johnson explained that DHS started the Fall Festival as a community event to exhibit the fall sports teams.

“The main reason DHS is doing Fall Fest is so that all DHS community members, faculty, staff, students, kids, can just have a family evening of fun.” Johnson said. “It’s also just a kick-off to the school year.”

The football team will be hosting small football scrimmages of flag football and tackle football for elementary and middle schoolers in the community.

“We’re going to have football scrimmages, from third and fourth grader to middle schoolers. Both Mill Creek seventh and eighth grade and all the LTMS teams are coming over this year,” Johnson explained.

As well as this, both the varsity soccer and football teams will be holding a scrimmage of their own.

“The scrimmage is the last week before game week so I feel like getting to see another defense for the offense is good preparation,” senior Connor Flynn said. “It just gets the teams out there and lets the students know what kind of teams that we have.”  

In addition to the fall sports games, there will be other family activities such as face painting, disc golf and army vehicles.

“One thing that we’ve expanded on this year is the public service fair. We have the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department coming over and they are bringing a big command center that people can tour through. They’re also bringing a SWAT vehicle and a Bearcat Vehicle,” Johnson explained. “The Marines are bringing a big F-150 and the Army National Guard is bringing two or three large military vehicles. Families with younger kids can climb around on these things and meet and greet.”

Johnson is excited for this addition to the Fall Festival and has even bigger plans for the years to come.

“We want to continue to grow the public service thing and get different branches of the military come. We hope to get more cool things and bring more people on campus,” Johnson said. “For this year, I’m just hoping for good weather and an evening for families to come and have fun.”