In one night, homecoming encompasses the quintessential high school experience: fellowship, competition, athletics and energy. After months of work for the student leadership team and individual classes, events reached a peak as they watched their projects fall into place, Oct. 14.

Students, parents, friends and alumni gathered on the FC football field for the 27th annual homecoming — only the second on FC turf. Following the board game theme, “It’s Game Time!,” the festivities honored each class’s float, the royal court of princess, queen and king nominees and the homecoming football game.

Classes depict board game-themed floats

In classic homecoming tradition, floats lined up early in the afternoon for students to attend to last minute details and issues. Once work shifts were through and everyone was in costume, judges visited each float during halftime to observe the presentations.

“It was awesome. I don’t think my expectations were low but my expectations were definitely exceeded,” history teacher and float judge Jordana Siebert said. “I looked for creativity and authenticity when I was judging.They were trying to make it look like a board game, so the ones who did that actually caught my attention more. I think I chose the right winner, whether that class will win according to other judges we have to wait and see, but I am confident in my choice.”

With techno music blasting from their black-and-white chess float, the junior class took fourth place; the freshmen overcame the rookies’ disadvantage, placing third with their The Game of Life float; sophomores nabbed second place with a streamlined, faithful rendition of Monopoly; the senior class owned their seniority, seizing first place with a float depicting Candy Land.

“Homecoming senior year was so much fun,” senior Danielle St. Marie said. “Even though we spent a lot of long hours during the weekend to put together our sweet interpretation of Candy Land, it was all worth it. I will forever have the memories of float building and the crazy things we as classmates would do during break time.”

As a senior dressed up as Queen Frostine from Candy Land, Celeste Camacho was thrilled to take first place in an eccentric environment.

“I was absolutely ecstatic to win,” Camacho said. “I wan’t surprised; I knew we would taste victory with our awesome Candy Land float. Being Queen Frostine was so much fun; I loved dressing up for the night.”

Though junior Kevin Thao was obligated to assist with work elsewhere during homecoming, he put trust in his class to complete the chess float without him. However, since the class has placed fourth each year, he hopes to see improvement for their senior year.

“I’m not disappointed that I didn’t get to see the float because I was sure that our leadership group was able to finish it in time,” Thao said. “I know that I didn’t need to be there because I knew that my friends could take it on without me. We didn’t put a lot of effort into perfecting our float, but hopefully next year we’ll come up with better ideas.”

Peers honor royal court

While their classmates dressed up as gum drops and silver game pieces, homecoming court nominees donned lavish attire for the evening. Princesses and queens in sparkly gowns and kings in their Sunday best made their way onto the football field for introductions and honors.

’11 alumni and homecoming queen and king of 2010, Jenna Yee and Andrew Evans performed the duty of crowning the new court.

The freshman class voted in Sabrina Henderson as their homecoming princess; Chloe Duerr won for the sophomores; and the juniors chose Theresa Perez. Senior Morgan Childs was selected to be the senior homecoming princess, and the FC student body chose seniors Brooke Stobbe as their queen and Brady Lee as their king.

“It just feels really fun; it’s a great honor for your entire school to vote for you,” Stobbe said. “When you’re up there and you’re seeing everyone, and you’re standing up there with however many girls and people; just hearing everyone cheering when you walk through the arch, and when your name is called, it’s really overwhelming, and you realize how blessed you are. It’s really enjoyable.”

For Lee, the experience was purely one of joy and reflection.

“It’s so special; it’s hard to describe the feeling but it’s like joyful,” Lee said. “And I’m looking around right now and I’m seeing different floats and different kids from elementary school and alumni and it’s like: ‘Whoa. I’m at Fresno Christian and this is so special right now.’ I’m taking it in and I’m trying to live in the moment.”

Throughout the week of homecoming festivities, Stobbe and Lee were partnered up in pageants. They served as each other’s king and queen for the various challenges and trials at hand. According to Stobbe, this made the result even more significant.

“It’s really fun because we were partnered up for the pageants, so it’s really fun calling him my king, and he’s been calling me his queen,” Stobbe said. “It was really fun because we’ve been through the whole process together, literally. I think Brady definitely deserves it; he’s a great kid and he deserves to be someone who represents our school and is given that honor.”

Prior to the announcement of winners, sophomore candidate and winner Duerr was unsure of what to anticipate. However, she concentrated on the gleaned relationships from the homecoming experience.

“I was really nervous, but I was also really excited to come,” Duerr said. “I spent an hour and a half getting ready. I feel a lot older being all dressed up. It’s a lot of fun being a princess, I feel like I have bonded with everyone so much more, especially Amanda [Menes] and Viviana [Hinojosa], we have had a fun week together so far.”

Alumni gather for fellowship, memories

To fulfill the true meaning of homecoming, alumni returned to their home campus. Although they no longer directly partake in the competitions, they take time to reflect on their high school experiences, says Director of Alumni Relations Gary Schultz.

“Look around and you can see it,” Schultz said. “You have all these people; there’s the people watching the game — the parents and some of the students. But then there’s all these other people who came, and they’re just remembering their years at Fresno Christian. They’re remembering things that are special to them. They’re supporting and enjoying the fellowship. There’s a lot of friendship and camaraderie.”

Fresh out of high school, ’11 alumna Rachel Wilhelm finally experienced the other side of homecoming, beyond the chaotic scene of the students. The nostalgic experience evoked memories of homecoming week and her entire high school career, she says.

“It was great seeing everyone there and catching up,” Wilhelm said. “It was weird not being involved with the floats and not having to be running around doing things. It was kind of sad because it made me miss those aspects of high school. And I missed getting to watch all the pageants. But I liked being older; it made me feel like high school was forever ago.”

Football team claims win over Riverdale

In addition to celebrations of victories from the royal court and float winners, the football team found reason to celebrate with their win over Riverdale High School. FC claimed another win with a final score of 23-12.

“It was pretty cool [to win], and felt good since we haven’t won homecoming in like five years,” sophomore football player Bobby Christopher said. “I’m glad that the football team is have somewhat of a successful year for once. [Homecoming] was more fun because there were alumni there from last year, and we didn’t have a very good year last year, so it was cool because they got to be apart of the win too. I had a pretty good time but next year if we [the football team] win someone needs to have a party or something or like and extra long Fifth Quarter.

For more information on homecoming, read the Oct. 15 article, BREAKING: Seniors, candidates highlighted at homecoming.

Editor’s note: Due to an inexplicable technical error, a video for this article is unavailable. The Feather apologizes for the inconvenience.

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