Homecoming Week is full of traditions and memories that many students can celebrate. Competitive events that take place all week, such as Chalk N’ Rock and the 3 v. 3 Basketball Tournament, are assessed on a certain number of points.

Each year, one event that gets many entries and is shown great attention is the tradition of building floats for the homecoming parade. The group with the most points wins the Best Overall Homecoming Award. The most points an organization can win is by building a float for the homecoming parade.

The homecoming parade along Jayhawk Boulevard consists of groups such as the Marching Jayhawks, the grand marshal, alumni, fraternities, sororities, high school bands and more.

The entry categories for the homecoming parade are mobile floats with moving parts, mobile floats with non-moving parts, decorated vehicles and KU banners.

“Anyone or organization can build a float or be a part of the parade as long as they turn in an application,” Joey Stromberg, Sterling junior and Homecoming Steering Committee member, said.

Each group that entered the float competition had to write a short paragraph to explain its group and describe its entry. Each float description had to incorporate the homecoming theme, “Peace. Love. Jayhawks.”

When it comes to building floats, sororities and fraternities team up to pool resources.

“There is a lot of work that goes into planning, building and budgeting for the float,” Amy Chesshir, Columbia, Mo., senior and member of sorority Kappa Delta, said. “The actual building of the structure is up to the fraternity and then the girls come in and work on decorating the float with pomps.”

Pomps are small squares of colorful tissue paper that are used to fill in the chicken wire that makes up the frame of the float. Other parades, such as the Rose Bowl Parade, use flowers or other colorful material. Pomp sheets have caught on at the University because they are a cheaper, easier alternative to flowers. University groups use chicken wire, two-by-fours and glue in addition to pomps.

After planning, building and pomping the float together, which in some cases lasts until the day of the parade, everyone prepares for the parade. Student groups begin their floats about a week before the parade and work on them every evening.

“We never have it done the night before,” Brian Haberkorn, Eagan, Minn., junior, said. “We are always working on it the morning of, putting final touches on it.”

For some groups, such as Haberkorn’s fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon, these floats have a deeper meaning than just trying to win a prize.

“For SAE, the homecoming parade float has always been thought as a big tradition for the house and we work really hard to keep the tradition alive,” Haberkorn said.

The homecoming parade on Saturday begins at approximately 10 a.m. The parade begins at the Kansas Union and follows Jayhawk Boulevard to the Chi Omega fountain.

The Lawrence community, alumni and University students are expected to attend the parade and to be a part of the tradition.

“I marched in the KU band when I went to school so I come back and march for the alumni band in the parade,” Mary Lynn Blacklock said. “I like to be on campus because there are just a lot of good memories for me.”

Other students agree.

“Homecoming is definitely something I look forward to every year because seeing the whole Lawrence community come out and support the parade and the school is a lot of fun,” Chesshir said.

— Edited by Tim Burgess