Baylor Homecoming Parade To Be Broadcast Live on KCEN-TV Ch. 6, Streamed on Homecoming Website

October 16, 2013
Baylor Homecoming Parade

Matthew Minard/Baylor Marketing and Communications

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Contact: Lori Fogleman, (254) 710-6275

WACO, Texas (Oct. 16, 2013) - Baylor University and KCEN-TV Ch. 6 will broadcast the 104th anniversary Baylor Homecoming Parade, one of the oldest and largest collegiate homecoming parades in the nation, with live coverage from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 19, from Fifth Street on the Baylor campus. The parade also will be streamed live at www.baylor.edu/homecoming.

Returning to host the parade this year are John Morris and Lori Fogleman.

The Baylor Homecoming Parade will begin at 8 a.m. at Eighth Street and Austin Avenue in downtown Waco. It will travel down Austin and make a right on Fourth Street. Progressing down Fourth, the parade will go under the I-35 overpass, turn right on Dutton Avenue and then left on Fifth Street.

As the parade enters the Baylor campus at approximately 9 a.m., both the television broadcast and live streaming video of the parade will begin.

This year's parade will feature more than 150 entries, including 11 elaborately designed floats, distinguished university, community and athletics dignitaries, marching bands and musical acts, and campus and community organizations.

This year's grand marshals of the Baylor Homecoming Parade are Dr. Robert and Joyce Packard, true Baylor treasures who embody the mission of the University. Dr. Packard taught physics at Baylor for more than 50 years, impacting generations of students in the classroom and winning numerous Baylor and national teaching awards. His "Packard Physics" class was an institution on campus for a half century, and his classroom experiments made physics accessible and entertaining. He and his wife, Joyce, met at Baylor, and their wedding was officiated by Baylor President W.R. White.

Baylor President Ken Starr will be accompanied in this year's parade by five Waco education and government leaders - Waco Mayor Malcolm Duncan Jr., Waco ISD Superintendent Bonny Cain, McLennan Community College Board Chair Randy Cox, Texas State Technical College President Elton Stuckly and Midway ISD Superintendent George Kazanas - to celebrate Baylor's strong partnership with Waco and Central Texas.

Following the parade, fans will head to Floyd Casey Stadium for the football game between the 12th-ranked Baylor Bears and the Iowa State Cyclones. Kickoff is at 6 p.m.

History of the Baylor Homecoming Parade

From the beginning in 1909, the Baylor Homecoming Parade has been a first-class extravaganza of color that featured bands, horse-drawn carriages and wagons, student and civic organizations, and a stream of dignitaries.

On Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 24, 1909, the Baylor Band, as is still the custom today, headed the first Baylor Homecoming Parade and was led by its towering drum major, who, it was reported, was "six feet six in his stocking feet and without his bearskin cap."

As the band moved westward up Washington Avenue and then down to Eighth and Austin, it was followed in the parade - 30 to 40 blocks long - by distinguished guests, speakers, alumni and former students, Baylor clubs, university trustees, Baylor President Samuel Palmer Brooks and faculty, the dean and faculty of the medical school, the R.C.B.'s and Calliopeans women's clubs, Alessandro's Band, the Erisophians and Philomathesians men's clubs, the Baylor Medicos, the football squad, the tennis club, and the basketball team, in that order.

Autos and carriages, 60 in all, followed, and all were decorated - one completely covered with yellow chrysanthemums.

The female literary societies filled "tallyhos" decorated with the colors of their organizations. The men's societies walked in four lines that greatly lengthened as the parade progressed when alumni of the groups joined in the march.

Despite the initial success of the first Baylor Homecoming Parade, the event - indeed, Homecoming itself - did not become an annual tradition until after World War II.

The second Baylor Homecoming Parade took place in 1915, six years after the first, and the third was not until 1924. Afterward, Homecoming was held intermittently until World War II and, after the war, resumed on an annual basis from 1945 to the present.

Torchlight parades, the night before the Homecoming football game, were common in the 1920s. Floats first appeared in the parade in 1915. One float that year depicted a young freshman entering a main hall and emerging as a dignified senior. Floats became standard for the parade during the 1920s and usually carried general themes, often patriotic in nature.

It wasn't until the 1950s that the floats began to take note of Baylor's opponent for the Homecoming football game. By 1960, practically every float carried a slogan that forecast doom for the mascot of the opposing team.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian university and a nationally ranked research institution, characterized as having "high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The university provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 15,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating university in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 11 nationally recognized academic divisions. Baylor sponsors 19 varsity athletic teams and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.