A battle rages as rooks, pawns, knights and bishops fight to protect their king and queen on a square-checkered board. Between the mixed colors of black and white, one can see that these pieces are more than soldiers battling for a victory. They are now juniors striving to make a comeback from a war lost twice before.

Even though the class of 2013 was defeated by the freshman, juniors and seniors last year, they return as upperclassmen ready to show off their chessboard for the 2011 FC homecoming: “It’s Game Time!,” Oct. 14.

To represent the game of chess, the juniors will be assembling a life-size chessboard with people acting as pieces and moving around to create a live battle. Junior leadership representative Kevin Thao shares his hopes for the float.

“I’m looking forward to the unique outcome of our float’s theme and am super excited about getting to see the teamwork of our junior class,” Thao said. “My only concern is if we will have enough time to finish the float. What we plan to do on the float is have live fight/dance scenes, and, of course, awesome music.”

Though many of the sophomores competitors chose to decorate their floats as classic Hasbro game, they decided to design under what they thought would be an unique motif.

“The idea that came out from the theme, in our opinions, looked awesome and made us dream about a huge thing that we could envision,” Thao said. “We wanted to take something chess, something original, and make it new.”

With a change of venue for float-building location, the juniors took their work to Juan Ruelas?s house. Although it is exciting to host homecoming construction at his house, Ruelas fostered concerns as well.

?I’m excited that it’s at my house, but I think it’s going to be a challenge to keep everyone organized since we are teenagers and we’re not very organized even here at school,? Ruelas said. ?I’m a little worried because my parents said we could build at my house as long as they don’t have to do anything, so having parent supervision without total involvement is a concern.”

Despite the challenge of overcrowding the float in past years, Miriam DeWolf recalls the positives aspects of last year and looks forward to working with the juniors, aiming to not come in last.

?In past years, one of the things that was bad was that we often had a lot of stuff on or around our float,? DeWolf said. ?One thing that was good last year was that we had less people working on it at once, and therefore more people could work on it and it wasn’t all crazy with people yelling at each other all the time. I’m excited this year because it’s our junior year and I hope that we actually don’t come in last place.?

On the other hand, Jordan Boudreau hopes to simply experience the festiveness of the event.

“I’m looking forward to just having a good time,” Boudreau said. “I don’t care if we win as long as we have a fun in the process. We aren’t gonna get stressed out about the competitive aspect of homecoming.”

While some students have experienced homecoming and the float-building process, new student Taylor Neufeld anticipates the new event.

?I’ve never done this before; I’ve never had a homecoming court or a homecoming game because there was no sports at my old school [Central Valley Christian Academy],? Neufeld said. ?I’m looking forward to being involved in different things that my other school didn’t have.”

The 27th annual homecoming event will take place on the North Field at 6:45 p.m.

For more information on homecoming, read the Oct. 7 article, BRIEF: Homecoming week schedule, 2011. For previous float articles, read the Oct. 18, 2010 article, Sophomore float expresses American patriotism.

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