BY LAURYN BECKER
The biggest week in college is back; Homecoming week is upon us at Fort Hays State University.
A tradition that was scaled back for a year due to the COVID-19 outbreak is back and better than ever.
“It’s been super nice being able to plan everything back to normal and bring back a lot of the traditions that a lot of students haven’t experienced. When it comes to the bonfire, we haven’t had that since 2018,” Assistant Director of Student Engagement Diego Esparaza said. “A lot of our students, even our older students don’t know what that looks like. It’s just been exciting to be able to have everything kind of back to normal and have students experience those traditions back again.”
As excited as Student Engagement is to be able to plan Homecoming again, they are even more excited about the events they have planned for next week. With events such as a meet and greet with royalty candidates to creating your own Fort Hays pennant, there’s something for every student to enjoy
“We’re super excited about the homecoming royalty meet and greet on Monday. Students can get an opportunity to meet them. We’re also having a scavenger hunt throughout the entire week. So we’ll be hiding some tokens at all of our events,” Esparaza said. “Then we’ll be posting the clues onto Student Engagement social media, and whoever finds that token, will win a prize; some echo dots and smart lights and things like that that you could win throughout the week just by coming to the events. We’re also super excited for the bonfire.”
As far as preparations for Homecoming go, the Homecoming Coordinating Committee meets several months in advance to get ready for the biggest week at Fort Hays.
“The Homecoming Coordinating Committee meets monthly up until August and then we start meeting every other week and then the month that whatever happens to be, but really we meet monthly and we’ll probably start meeting back up again in November to start thinking about next year,” Esparaza said.
Another big part of homecoming, of course, is the football game and other athletics events happening throughout the year.
Starting Tuesday, students can catch the women’s tennis team in action against Bethany college at 3:00 p.m., and then Thursday, men’s soccer takes on Ouachita Baptist at 6:30 p.m. Friday, the volleyball team takes on Missouri Western at 6:00 p.m. and women’s soccer matches up against Central Oklahoma also at 6:00 p.m.
On Saturday, men’s soccer plays against Harding at 1:00 p.m., volleyball squares off against Northwest Missouri at 3:00 and finally, the Homecoming football game versus the Nebraska-Kearney Lopers takes place at 7:00 p.m. Women’s soccer rounds out the weekend versus Newman at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday.
With so many events for students throughout the week, students can stay up to date through Tiger Media Network, as well as through Student Engagement social media pages, and https://fhsuathletics.com. Students can also find a complete list of Homecoming events at https://www.fhsu.edu/homecoming/.