Homecoming is one of the most important events in high school that has stayed around for years. Like many other things, homecoming has changed in many ways throughout the decades. From the number of students in school to the events of the week, Larned’s Homecoming has been and will continue to be a very memorable event for high school students.
One of the changes for Homecoming Week is the painting of the senior parking lot. The senior class meets in the parking lot, shares pizza, and paints the students’ spots. Before painting parking spots, the students would paint 8th Street. 8th Street used to be the road that all visiting teams would drive up to head to the school. LHS alumni Bethany Steinlage says that Senior paint is definitely my favorite memory; washing the paint off your body after wasn’t.”Both then and now, after painting, the students would go out to the practice field and have a paint war and throw paint at each other.
In past years, LHS has gone to a computerized voting system for both candidates and the king and queen. Stucco leaders were having trouble getting people to answer their emails, so they decided to go back to the old-school way and use a ballot system. Wanted used to have a much higher population, which meant the school had more students. With this higher student body, there were 12 total candidates. LHS alumni Scott Upson says, ” It was really neat to see them go back to in-person voting instead of doing everything online. It’s nice to get away from social media and actually get kids out there to see what voting is really like.
One exciting event that made a reappearance recently was the LHS bonfire. The bonfire is a tradition that has been around for as long as the school where the community came together to have s’mores and play yard games. The bonfire is always the night before the homecoming football game, and the head football coach gives a speech, getting everybody excited for the game the next day. Alumni Chad Erway says his favorite memory was playing Pratt and being down at halftime. Larned came back and won the game. Erway also won homecoming king, with Becky Buster as the queen.
While the homecoming dance is not as big of an event, it used to be one of the most important parts of the homecoming week. With such a large population and student body, the LHS homecoming dance was always packed. People would dance, play games, and have fun after the football game. Chad Erway says, “People seemed to want to go out and dance more than they do now.” Homecoming has never been a formal dance and has always been a jeans and t-shirt kind of time. Even though it was more casual, people would still have fun dancing to both upbeat and slow songs.
Homecoming has been and will forever be one of the most important events for high schoolers all over the nation. Many adults will say that homecoming was one of their best memories from high school. The stories of high school homecomings will be shared throughout generations as these events change and evolve.
