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PAGE 14. HOMECOMING 2014
Parade floats allow for competition and fun
A KU student tosses candy to parade onlookers during the 99th Homecoming Parade on Jayhawk Boulevard in Lawrence. "From Lawrence with Love" was last year's theme. This year's parade will be Friday at 6 p.m.
ALANA FLINN
@alana_flinn
The marching bands, candy and antique vehicles that are so familiar to KU students will be returning on Friday at 6 p.m. No parade is complete without the addition of floats.
The building and judging of floats in the Homecoming parade is a longstanding tradition at the University.
Emma Hardwick, a senior from Overland Park, and Caleb Johnson, a senior from Basehor, hold the positions of co-parade chairs for the 2014 Homecoming season. The committee decided on almost all of the goings-on of this year's Homecoming, from the theme to the events that occur throughout the week.
Included in the committee's responsibilities are the registration and organization of all floats involved in the parade. Almost all floats are student run, Hardwick said. As far as competition goes, there are two divisions for float judging: student organization floats and greek floats.
The floats are built onto a trailer, their frame molded from chicken wire and completed by "pumping," a process in which small pieces of tissue paper are attached to fill the frame. In recent years, moving parts have been allowed to be incorporated into floats.
Johnson said groups can enter the parade in four different categories: walking with a banner, a decorated vehicle, a non-moving parts float, and a moving parts float.
Design dictates the time spent on a float, Johnson said.
"The biggest thing with building a float is the design," he said. "How extravagant you're trying to be dictates how labor intensive it's going to be. A more simple design can be done in a couple days with five people working on it. On the more detail-oriented end, you can have 14 guys working around the clock for five days."
Hardwick said float building is as competitive as a group makes it.
"There are two or three sorority and fraternity pairs that are very gung-ho about it," she said. "They can get really elaborate. The last two times that we've built our float, no one knew its location. We said 'the float is being built by this barn' and told very few people the exact place so competitors couldn't see what we were building."
Johnson agrees with Hardwick.
"Float building is very competitive, and that's part of why it's fun," Johnson said. "You're always trying to do better than you did last year."
The greek division is historically more competitive than student organizations.
"There aren't a ton of non-greeks that have floats in the parade, but they're definitely still participating." Hardwick said. Some of the
more impressive floats she has seen in the recent past include a giant Jayhawk, a car with someone inside of it "driving," and a float with a model of each of the Jayhawk logo iterations from the past 100 years.
Hardwick said to build an interesting float, a group should think outside of the box.
"Think of something creative," Hardwick said. "A lot of people do a Jayhawk. A lot of people like to do a football field theme. Wheat is another big one. I can assure you that half of the floats will have a Jayhawk on them."
Hardwick and Johnson want to see KU students show their passion for the University, and that extends itself to the Homecoming parade and float creation.
"I'd like to see everyone turn it up a few notches," Hardwick said. "It would be great to see everyone get a little more competitive about their floats."
Johnson said groups should keep in mind that the goal of float building should never be to win. He said the goal is to "create something that makes the kids standing on the side watching the parade go, 'Wow, that's awesome.'"
- Edited by Emily Brown
Various organizations are preparing floats for this year's Homecoming parade. There are two categories for floats: student organization floats and Greek Life floats.
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