The Evolution of Homecoming

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, as assistant principal Karen Hyde likes to say, Homecoming was a week for alumni to return and show support for their school. Now that idea seems peculiar and out of place. Over the years, Homecoming has developed into an event full of pride and spirit meant for the current students, not directed toward the mostly forgotten alumnus who was crowned Homecoming queen in the class of ‘94.

Four decades ago, Homecoming used to involve bonfires and parades displaying floats created by each grade.

“Once we got rid of the floats, [Homecoming] became more about how to involve kids thematically, in costume, without doing a parade,” said Hyde, who has worked as an administrator at the school since the 1970s.

The idea caught on and eventually grew into a strictly on-campus event. Students would dress up to their theme and come to lunch in costume. There would be music, but that was it.

Students shaped Homecoming week into the event it is today by competing with other grades. Skits began to be performed at lunch, and eventually a system was developed where each class was assigned to a certain day. Freshmen would perform on Monday, sophomores on Tuesday and so on, but Friday was left open—a drab finish to a week full of school spirit.

Once the schedule was rearranged to leave Monday blank, Hyde suggested a staff act.

“For a couple of years, that went really well,” she said. “But since then, it’s been difficult to get a group together. We’re trying again this year!”

Hyde also maintains that the election of Homecoming royalty transitioned from a popularity contest into a competition between students with genuine school spirit.

“The king and queen morphed from being popular into representative,” she said. “The elections began to have true meaning.”

Contrary to popular belief, Homecoming skits are neither mandatory nor directed by the staff.

“It really was an evolutionary process,” Hyde said. “Most traditions in high school are four yeProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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s long: They start with the freshmen and end as seniors, but this has been longstanding.”

Comparing today’s skits with the performances of the freshmen five years ago, observers can easily see the improvement.

“It gets better with time. Every year, the skits are bigger, better, more dramatic. It’s just the competitive nature of the kids,” Hyde said.

Saratoga High is not the type of school whose students graduate, stay in Saratoga and have their kids follow their parents’ footsteps in school. If alumni return, they usually do so after leaving for college and completing graduate school.

“It seems kind of weird to have alumni back now,” Hyde said. “It makes more sense to do our own thing, regardless of what the alumni do.”

While alumni are still paid to come back in order to crown the new Homecoming royalty, as they will again this year, that is the furthest extension of their role in today’s version of Homecoming.

Homecoming has evolved from a basis of alumni support into a display of school pride and enthusiasm.

As Hyde said, “[Saratoga High’s] Homecoming is probably a misnomer, but it is what it is to us.” And it is something its students are proud of.