The University of Wyoming Alumni Association is now taking submissions for activities for the 2015 UW Homecoming.
According to a June 22 UW press release, the Homecoming 2015 theme is “Once a Cowboy, Always a Cowboy.” Activity organizers hoping to be listed in the printed schedules, calendars and announcements have until August 3 to send in their submissions.
Keener Fry, executive director for the UW Alumni Association, spoke on the reasoning behind asking for submissions from the general public.
“We went ahead and made the appeal campus-wide, plus community-wide because there’s sometimes things that happen that would be very positive for us to make sure our alums, in particular, that are coming into to town, would know are available,” Fry said.
While submissions are due August 3, organizers can still put together activities for the event if they miss the deadline.
“Now, the parade, you fill out an actual form to register an entry in that,” Fry said. “But the others, they’re maybe a little more informal and as long as they let us know, we print out a master calendar for the weekend. But all along, we’re maintaining a master calendar on the website. There’s a specific homecoming website. We just keep updating that as we get things.”
There are two main reasons behind UW’s annual Homecoming events, Fry said.“It’s an essential weekend surrounding a football game, as it has been since 1922, to hopefully encourage alums to come back and connect with the university and their particular colleges,” Fry said.
“The other purpose that is really important is we try to include as many student activities as possible,” Fry said. “One of the most historic is the traditional Homecoming Sing that’s been held typically Wednesday night of homecoming.
The Homecoming Sing is scheduled for October 10 and features a number of different musical performers from around campus.
“It’s different groups on campus, fraternities, sororities, some that are very organized music groups that typically play together – they can be from any walk of life on our campus,” Fry said. “That has probably been our longest running student program.”
However, there are numerous activities that occur from year to year for this event.
“We’ve had spirit relays, we’ve had multiple concerts in the past… This year we’re doing a thing with the town merchants – ‘paint the town brown and gold’. Athletics organizes a car-push up one of the ramps over at the football stadium,” Fry said. “And another key is we host a fifty-year reunion. So, this year it’ll be those graduates from 1965.”
