The senior Lake Placid High School Winter Carnival court, including, from left, Foster Wood, Cody Montagnola, Brady Tremblay, Carnival King Alex Wright, Carnival Queen Grace Carlson, Sydney Lawrence, Adelisa Ahmemulic and Julia Crawford, smile after the Winter Carnival coronation at the Lake Placid Middle-High School gymnasium on Wednesday, March 15. (News photo — Lauren Yates)

LAKE PLACID — This week marked 80 years of Winter Carnival activities, costumes and crowned royalty in the Lake Placid Central School District. During the coronation at the high school on Wednesday night, March 15, students and teachers chose seniors Alex Wright and Grace Carlson as this year’s carnival king and queen.

The 2023 Winter Carnival theme was “Seasons,” and students from Lake Placid Elementary School dressed up as sprouting seeds, bumblebees, fall leaves and snowmen to sing in celebration of Lake Placid’s winters, springs, summers and falls during the Carnival coronation.

A Syracuse native, Wright — who is also the Class of 2023 valedictorian — transferred to LPCSD when he was in fourth grade. He was a founding member of the school’s robotics club as an eighth grader, and he’s now the team captain. He’s also the president of the school’s chapter of the National Honor Society. Wright plays for the school’s varsity soccer team, varsity basketball team and played for the school’s varsity golf team in 10th and 11th grade.

For his senior capstone project, Wright combined his love of sports and robotics by hosting community-building sporting tournaments to raise money for the robotics club. He plans to attend Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca this fall.

Lake Placid native Carlson enjoys art and playing soccer. She’s a member of the National Honor Society as well as the school’s Service Club and Drama Club. She was in the cast of this year’s spring musical, “The Addams Family,” and she’s a member of the high school’s Select Ensemble Group. She’s also a counselor with the Lake Placid Youth Commission. For her capstone project, Carlson completed an internship this past summer with local interior designer Ann Stillman O’Leary. Carlson will also paint a mural inside the high school for her capstone project.

While she hasn’t heard back from the colleges she’s applied to yet, Carlson is hoping to open her mailbox to good news this weekend, when she expects to receive decision letters from colleges. She wants to attend Middlebury College, a private liberal arts college in Vermont.

Other Carnival candidates for king and queen included seniors Cody Montagnola, Brady Tremblay, Foster Wood, Adelisa Ahmemulic, Julia Crawford and Sydney Lawrence.

Ceatten Lewis, Caleb Wylie, Talia Anastasia and Sophie Spandburgh were on the ninth grade carnival court; Levi Barney, Parker Scanio, Alexa Coffin and Brooke Beaney were on the 10th-grade carnival court; and the 11th-grade court included Jesse Marshall, Joshua Taylor, Emily Kostoss and Nadia Phillip.

Cora Clark, the district’s longtime nurse who recently retired, was this year’s Carnival Archbishop. Grace Ericson was the “mistress of ceremonies” for this year’s Carnival.

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Carnival activities

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Winter Carnival was first created in the district’s 1943-44 school year to promote and encourage winter sports in the area by providing students with a social and athletic week in the middle of the long winter months. Students participate in sporting activities like dodgeball — a student favorite — relay races and snow volleyball. There were some new activities this year, too, including a cooking challenge and a puzzle competition. In recent years, each high school grade has also recorded a “lip dub” to see which class can serve the most impressive lip-synching performance.

This week’s snowstorm threw off the winter carnival schedule a bit. The coronation, among other activities, was pushed back from Tuesday to Wednesday after the school announced that it wouldn’t hold any after-school activities on Tuesday. But middle-high school Principal Theresa Linsday said some good came out of the schedule change. The Carnival hall decorating contest was held during the school day on Wednesday rather than after school on Tuesday, meaning all students could participate. The school also held a Carnival closing ceremony for the first time ever on Thursday, which gave students an opportunity to hear the results of their sporting competitions and watch all of the lip dub performances.

While the sophomores won this year’s lip dub challenge, the seniors swept the Winter Carnival competitions overall, earning a total of 380 points across all of the contests. Sophomores came in second with 345 total points, juniors placed third with 343 points and freshmen took fourth with 248 points.