16A
HOMECOMING
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2004
Activities change, but heart of tradition stays
BY JULIA COLLING
correspondent@kansan.com
KANSAN CORRESPONDENT
What is the real meaning of homecoming?
Technically,homecoming is simply the act of returning home. But to the University of Kansas, it is more than that.
"The importance of homecoming is huge, because it is when the University welcomes alumni and the community back to campus ... there is something for everybody on campus," Trisha Gresnick, adviser of the Homecoming 2004 Steering Committee, said.
2004 Bench Henry Fortunato, project director of the KU History Web site, sees it in a different way.
you see it in a different way "Homecoming has more significance for people who attended KU as an undergraduate student, than as a graduate student," he said.
Fortunato said that normally graduate students do not participate much in the University's activities, and do not get involved with Homecoming, while undergraduate students have a tendency to socialize more and get more involved with the University's traditional events.
There have been some changes to the week throughout time, but has the meaning of homecoming changed?
"It still means the same," Jennifer Alderdice, Director of Programs for the Kansas Alumni Association, said.
Adam "It's different because there are more students involved in the planning, and there are also more events to be planned, for example bringing Bill Cosby to
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE POINT SYSTEM?
TH
1—Apply to participate
Step-by-Step
2- Points for each event are predetermined
4 — You can earn points in Competitive Events, In the Parade, or in Participation Events
campus. In the past, they used to bring big names, but that hasn't happened for a while." Alderdice said.
3—Groups participating in each event are judged, earning points for each activity
5 — On going chart with the points is kept by the Awards Chair
6 — The group who has more points is the winner, and receives the Overall Homecoming Award
7. — You have to go to the ceremony to receive the Award and that happens in the last day of Homecoming Week.
While in the past there was less organization and participation in the events, participation has became one of the most
important times of the year. This year, if you wanted to participate in the homecoming events, you had to apply early, earning points for each event. The point system can seem a bit complex. Laura Burrows, from the Steering Committee explained: The point system was created to evaluate who is the homecoming winner, that is who should receive the Overall Homecoming Award. Basically, the groups are judged in the competitive events and for participation, and based on that they assign first, second and third places. Burrows said that the Overall Homecoming Award is a participation award that symbolizes the school spirit, showing who is actively involved with Homecoming, stimulating the University traditions.
Lauren Jesse, the
Homecoming Awards Chair, said that there were some changes from past homecomings, for example, they did not use to count points for participation, and this year it is the first time that the Overall Award Ceremony is happening at the Kansas Union, and the winners of past years will be present.
of past years who will "Over the years, Homecoming has increased, becoming a much bigger event, including the whole community. We want it to be possible for all students to participate," Jesse said.
"People come here to relive some of their memories, to retrace their footsteps. You can back home and home needs to make you feel comfortable." Barbara Ballard, associate director of the Dole Institute of Politics, said.
Termination of rowdy Hobo Day bums out students
It was not exactly a bum's rush, but the unexpected ending of Hobo Day seemed sudden and sorrowful to at least some members of the KU community.
"Sadly the University laments the passing of one of its finest traditions," The University Daily Kansan editorialized on Nov. 21, 1939, when it became clear that Hobo Day was to be
KEVIN ARMITAGE
DEPARTMENT OF
HISTORY
KUhistory.com
Day was to be no more. "For 17 years students have been enjoying this yearly festival of rags ... No longer will we experience an expression of the idealism that is inherent in all youth."
youth.
Yet what the Kansan thought of as idealism, University officials knew could often become a near riot. Each year in late fall from 1923 on, many KU students had marked this day by dressing in boorish Hobo costumes and dreaming up all manner of street theatre celebrations. The wild party atmosphere of Hobo Day
swept all parts of campus; for years the University even supported the occasion by canceling afternoon classes.
With all that, the end of Hobo Day came about inadvertently. In 1939 a student group petitioned the University Senate to cancel classes so that students might attend the national cornhusking championship held near Lawrence. The Senate, which surely contained faculty who wished to see Hobo Day disbanded, voted to substitute the Hobo Day vacation for the cornhusking championship.
Although a few students belatedly tried to revive the custom, this administrative end run was not to be reversed. As the Kansan noted, the event fostered school spirit, but "in that it provided students an excuse for cutting classes needlessly, for destroying property, and for causing a great deal of unnecessary trouble, its passing is to be acclaimed."
Hobo Day began with the age old undergraduate need for beer money. In 1894, KU's campus was
site of a convention of used clothes buyers. Students rushed to swap their old duds for cash, badly needed given that the then annual "beer bust" in Kansas City was quickly approaching. The clothiers did brisk business, and decided to make their stop in Lawrence an annual affair.
Lawrence is an annual Enterprising students soon developed the idea of combining the beer bust with a special event that featured old clothes, and Hobo Day was born. Prohibition briefly derailed the celebration, but in 1923 students reinvented the tradition as a massive pep rally held before the annual Kansas-Missouri football game.
Missouri football game
The rehabilitated event featured students dressed in outlandish Hobo costumes, pep rallies, dances, bonfires and, at times, property damage and fistulocs between students and professors.
An article in the Kansan described the required outfit: "Old clothes, the older the better, plenty of paint, burnt cork, and... a corn-cob pipe are the main essential of makeup of a good 'hobo.'"
Soon, the raucous events became an integral part of homecoming festivities. The Kansan reported on particularly successful Hobo Day in 1925 in which Missouri's tiger mascot was captured "with the aid of hounds" as it was "perched in a tree ... The beast was executed and then dragged to convocation."
A red bandana carrying one's worldly possession was recommended, but not considered absolutely essential.
dragged to convince In its time, participation in Hobo Day was a virtual requirement. "The students who thinks himself out of the hobo class," warned the Kansan in November 1954, "is apt to lose his clothes and perhaps his dignity." The Kansas City Star, writing with a sense of bemused wonder, dubbed the Hobo Day atmosphere "Hobohemia."
From the beginning the raucous Hobo Day combined rallies with street theatre. In 1919, two students founded Doc Yak's Medicine Show, which soon became a Hobo Day staple. Doc
Yak imitated the medical hucksters of so-called Patent Medicines (which were usually neither patented nor medicinal) by combining the instincts of the carnival barker with the latest in medical quackery. He advertised himself as a "Purveyor of Pink Pills for Pale People" and held massive on-campus rallies. Taking Doc Yak's medicine was said to ensure a KU victory.
Perhaps fueled by too many pink pills, student Hobo Day behavior crossed the line from rowdiness to criminality more than once. Hobos raided grocery delivery trucks in 1926, and the resulting food fight included the collateral damage of professors hit with flying food. Other reports noted that a "hobo" and a professor engaged in "hand to hand scuffle."
scume. Little wonder that in 1926 the Graduate Magazine warned that Hobo Day "smacked almost too much of the real hobo spirit and may have wrecked a well-formed custom." In 1932 law students attempted to wreck the well-
formed Hobo Day custom by wearing fine clothes replete with rose boutonnieres to a Hobo Day rally. The ensuing battle between law students and those dressed in traditional attire raged until broken up by an assistant football coach.
Consequently, it is no surprise then, that the University Senate seized its chance to quash the hobo festivities. And yet one writer for the Kansan spared no rhetorical extravagance while lamenting the passing of this wild tradition.
"Student loyalty to the University will stagger under a death blow," editorialized the paper; "The good of this institution to postery may be blotted out forever. For loyalty is based on tradition, and loyalty assures the preservation of the school. It is with streaming tears, therefore, that the student body sees in the abolishing of Hobo Day the first step toward a desecration of the sanctity of tradition."
Reprinted with permission by KUhistory.com