While the leaves turn colors and the halls fill with Halloween decorations, Bradley will soon kick off its annual Homecoming festivities.
This year’s activities feature a few changes in programming, which will include several pre-events to hype students up for Homecoming Week.
Staying with tradition, wooden cutouts of Lydia Moss Bradley painted by student organizations will be on display throughout the week. This year, however, organizations will paint the wood cutouts during a new event called Painting of the Lydias Oct. 4.
Although Homecoming attempts to bring the campus together, this year’s festivities will include a new all-campus competition called Lydias versus Kabooms, which strikes great similarities to the game of Humans versus Zombies.
Students may register for the Oct. 7 game on Activities Council Bradley University’s (ACBU) website. Upon registering, participants will receive a two-toned wristband. The white side labels one as a Lydia, while black means Kaboom!. Lydias that are tagged by a Kaboom! must flip over their wrist bands and find the next victim. The last Lydia standing wins.
“There are a few restrictions on where you can and can’t play,” Assistant Director of Student Activities Lauren Smetana said. “We don’t want students getting distracted in class or being worried about going to the bathroom.”
This year’s Homecoming schedule will no longer include a bonfire, due to last year’s turnout of less than 50 people, according to Smetana. Instead, the pep rally will be combined with the lighting of the “B” for an overall bigger and better event to kick off the start of Homecoming Week.
The festivities will begin Oct. 15 at 7:30 p.m. and will include free food, trivia and other small activities. When the clock strikes eight, attendees can expect performances from student dance troupe Vitality and various athletes promoting their respective sports. The day will end with the traditional fireworks show.
This year, however, ACBU will add a small twist to the end of day one.
“[ACBU] is doing a T-shirt swap to help improve school spirit on campus,” Smetana said.
Students may bring a T-shirt, a pair of shorts or any other clothing item that has another school’s logo or name on it. ACBU will collect and trade the unwanted shirts for a Homecoming shirt. All the clothing will be donated to a charity organization. According to Smetana, this is a “win-win” situation because it gets students to donate clothes to a good cause while receiving a free long-sleeved shirt for the upcoming winter.
“You don’t go to U of I, you’re not in high school anymore, so wear Bradley,” Smetana said.
Friday’s Homecoming activities will include the Bradley Bowl at 4:30 p.m. The second annual flag football tournament will feature student leaders squaring off against faculty and staff. Although the roster is full, Smetana said students should still come out and cheer with Kaboom!.
The Homecoming soccer game against Central Arkansas will round off the week Oct. 18. Smetana said Bradley Athletics will hand out a limited number of scarves before the game.
With this year’s theme of “Roll out the red,” Homecoming Week aims to welcome alumni while uniting current students in a sea of school spirit.
