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OU DAILY Students pomp for their homecoming float by stuffing tissue paper in chicken wire while chatting and eating food at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house on Oct. 19.
AMANDA KUTNOCK/THE DAILY
PROUDLY GLEAMING Organizations collaborate for successful homecoming
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SIANDHARA BONNET/THE DAILY
(Right to left) Business entreprenuership sophomore Lauren Leslie, health and exercise science sophomore Christina Schutz and biology sophomore Carla Clark paint their group’s homecoming banner Oct. 17. Pi Beta Phi is paired with Sigma Phi Epsilon, the Student Government Association and the Asian American Student Association.
NOOR EEMAAN/THE DAILY
Members of The Pride march in the homecoming parade on Oct. 24, 2015. Homecoming: Reunion Weekend 2016 will take place Oct. 28 to 29.
SIANDHARA BONNET • @SIANDHARAB
eople see the floats in the parade, returning alumni, boards on the South Oval, the Homecoming Bash and Rah! Rally, but what they rarely see are the people behind the scenes who pull homecoming together. The preparation for this year’s homecoming began just one month after the 2015 homecoming. Nick Marr, letters senior, was elected as the Campus Activities Council homecoming chair and began to organize and plan as much of the next year as possible. However, there was only so much they could do until the date of the game was released. “We got that in late July, early August,” Marr said. “We have a lot that develops as it goes along.” As the executive committee planned, they also took concerns and recommendations from students during Community Advisory Board meetings. “Those are great. I’d recommend them for everything on campus,” Marr said. “You can ask people who maybe had nothing to do with planning, ‘what did you think of this?’ That’s your audience.” Some of the things addressed in those meetings were the organization pairing process, individual participation for students not in a group and the Homecoming Bash. This year, CAC also kept safety in mind following the 2015 Oklahoma State Homecoming accident, where four people were killed. “That was one of the first things that came up in the conversation about the parade,” Marr said. “That’s just working with the city on all of our plans, working with the police on all of our plans, holding it up and turning it every which way.” When school began in August, competing organizations began work on choreographing the Rah! Rally and designing boards, floats and banners. However, according to the 2016 Homecoming Representative Handbook, participants cannot commit more than 15 hours to
their projects. The groups also work with time constraints: no activity between midnight and 8 a.m., and homecoming activities should not go past 10:59 p.m., according to the handbook. “We definitely stuck to all of the rules because that was drilled into my head from day one,” Pi Beta Phi homecoming chair Katheryn Stokes said. “It was just kind of ... what can I do to make this more efficient during that 8 to 11?” Each group’s projects are coordinated efforts. Pi Phi worked with Sigma Phi Epsilon, Student Government Association and the Asian American Student association to coordinate supplies and space to practice. Each group is assigned a faculty or staff member guide who monitors meetings, helps to resolve disputes and make the process go smoothly, and makes sure the group stays on track with handbook rules, Marr said. This year, CAC implemented a Thousands Strong Campaign to raise money for organizations that did not have enough funds for their homecoming budgets. “When you have these new organizations — these smaller organizations — a lot of them, especially if it’s their first time, haven’t budgeted for homecoming,” Marr said. “The last thing that should keep anybody away is money. This is one of the oldest and my personal ... favorite thing on campus, and the last thing I want somebody to say is, ‘We were going to do it, but we didn’t have any money.’” Groups must consider chalk, paint, pomping — stuffing tissue paper into sheets of chicken wire — supplies, wood and other materials for homecoming preparations. One of the biggest surprises of working with other organizations was the amount of supplies the other organizations already had, Stokes said. “There was a group that had chalk (and) there was a group that see HOMECOMING page 2
Go to oudaily.com to see photos from 2016 Homecoming Bash