Homecoming traditions becoming obsolete

Matthew Ulsh

Homecoming is fast approaching. In just one short week, the king and queen will be announced and the dance will take place. It has been this way at Big Spring High School for years. It is a tradition of which many people do not know the origins.

Multiple colleges have claimed to be the first to have the first homecoming celebration. According to their website, The University of Missouri has arguably the oldest homecoming dating back to 1911. The Missouri athletic director at the time invited the alumni to come to the game, thus calling it home coming because the alumni  were returning returning to their college home. The celebrations culminated when the Missouri Tigers faced the Kansas Jayhawks in a football game. Bringing to tradition of a homecoming football game into existence. Smaller high schools and colleges who don’t have a football team usually have another sport serve as their homecoming game.

The king and queen of homecoming tradition was started at the same time also at the University of Missouri. The king was given to a senior boy who has given the most back to his community through community service and other things. The queen was given to a girl with the same credentials. In schools where there is only boys or girls there is a king and prince or a queen. The king and queen are usually seniors while the prince and princess are usually under classmen. The idea of a parade came later when multiple student run organizations came together to make floats that represents what they do in that organization.

The new problem that hundreds of high schools all over the country are facing is students not taking it seriously. This problem has appeared at Big Spring High School. This year’s junior male homecoming representative finished sixth in voting.  There seems to be a never ending list of the same thing happening at schools from Maine to California.

This makes schools question homecoming traditions and whether they are still  relevant in present day society or perhaps  a thing of the past. In this reporter’s opinion homecoming is a privilege to students and if they don’t take it seriously it should be taken away. Perhaps this high tech world has made homecoming obsolete. Sometimes the way thing have been and the way things should be are different.