'It's your move': a look at organizing a Homecoming parade

Southeast Missouri State University students, faculty, staff and alumni came together yesterday to celebrate homecoming with the theme "It's Your Move."

Joanna Shaver, coordinator of campus programming at Southeast, said this year's theme was chosen in the spring at a meeting with the student planning committee. The featured board games included Monopoly, Jumanji, Candy Land, Battleship, Mouse Trap, Trouble, Hungry Hungry Hippos and Operation, and were featured throughout the weeks preceding homecoming in competitive events and on yesterday's parade floats.

"We thought it was great because it kind of ties into 'It's your move, athletics' -- you know, let's go win, let's bring home championships, that sort of thing. 'It's your move, Southeast' -- we have a new president, let's see what we can do. 'It's your move, students' -- you know, how can you pull together as teams and create this great homecoming week. 'Community, it's your move' -- come out and support us, be a part of it, that kind of thing. I thought it was a great tag line to tie into many areas of the university and the community," Shaver said.

Atom Zuniga, a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and this year's homecoming parade committee chairperson, said his job was to organize the parade, make sure it ran smoothly and ensure everything from start to finish was done "without a hitch."

He said within homecoming there were three divisions of student organization-based teams, including Division 1, Division 2 and the noncompetitive division. He said organizations were free to choose which division they were placed in, but there was a limit of 250 members on any given team. Teams were restricted to only three organizations per team if they wished to pair up with others.

Beth Copeland works on a "Jumanji" themed float, Wednesday for Saturday's Southeast Missouri State University Homecoming Parade. (Laura Simon)

The competitive teams were then each given a board game theme around which they created their homecoming yard art, dance choreography and float designs.

Kristin Funderburk, homecoming co-chair for the service sorority Gamma Sigma Sigma, said she wanted to be a homecoming chairperson for her organization because the first two years she was a part of the sorority, homecoming was full of energy and everyone participated, so she wanted to carry on that excitement and get as many members involved as possible.

"I like the fact that it's competitive, but I wanted everyone to realize, yes, it's competitive, but you can still have fun and do it your own way," she said. "So this year, my co-chair and I really wanted to bring it back because, like I said, it's for Southeast, we're not doing it for the trophy at the end of the week."

This year, since Gamma Sigma Sigma was paired with Phi Delta Theta, a newer Greek fraternity on campus, there was less money allotted for the budget. Instead of doing the typical pomping, or gluing small squares of rolled tissue paper onto the wooden float boards, the team went a more cost-effective and nontraditional route and painted the backdrop and sides of its float.

"We [the co-chairs] were like, 'Then let's not pomp. Let's make the top of our float so crazy awesome real life that nobody cares if the boards were pomped or painted,'" Funderburk said.

Josh Aspen with Sigma Phi Epsilon works on a Trouble themed float, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015, for Saturday's Southeast Missouri State University's Homecoming Parade. (Laura Simon)

Zuniga said since homecoming is such an expensive event for competitive organizations, there might be a shift in the future of organizations still allotting the same amount of money for homecoming, but spending less on floats by painting or other techniques so they can donate the rest to a more meaningful cause, like to a charity or to build a playground for local children.

"The floats in particular -- they're really expensive to build. I'm talking, roughly $5,000 through and through, and that's involving pomps, wood, everything that goes into it. There have been people trying to make changes to that to where it's not just spend $5,000 on these materials that are going to be burned a week after homecoming. ... That money could be spent in better ways," Zuniga said. "I know other schools and organizations have done different things, charity runs or some type of money where they donate it rather than just spending it on all this stuff. And I think SEMO is going to start shifting to that relatively soon because there's been a small movement ... people are going to start using paint as an alternative because it's way cheaper and doesn't require as much time and effort from people."

Homecoming is an opportunity for the campus to unite as a whole, and Zuniga said the friendships he has made through homecoming make the long hours of preparing for the parade and other events worth it.

"I think the camaraderie that goes along with it, especially with large organizations like my own and other ones, and even smaller ones, too, typically they work together with another organization just because you can get more participation, it's more fun, you get to meet tons of new people," Zuniga said. "Another thing is the school unity, too, like it kind of brings everyone together. A lot of times, especially with Greek organizations and other organizations that are typically competing in other aspects, they're all kind of working together because it's for a common cause, really, you know, we want to come out here and support the school, and school spirit is above all that competition."

Funderburk had similar feelings.

Jeremy VonderHaar, left, and Josh Aspen with Sigma Phi Epsilon work on a Trouble themed float, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015, for Saturday's Southeast Missouri State University's Homecoming Parade. (Laura Simon)

"We love SEMO, we love all the opportunities we have, because we're a service organization," Funderburk said. "We're grateful to have a time to show how much we appreciate SEMO as a whole. So for us, it's more channeling our inner -- yes, we're Gamma Sig, but we're also Southeast students -- so let's have our Southeast pride and be happy for our alumni and everybody."