When we arrive in high school, the first thing most people look forward to is homecoming. When we think of homecoming, we picture dances, parades, cheers, and rivalry. But most importantly one thing that makes homecoming is our floats! What is the true essence of our traditional homecoming floats? What’s the thrill, excitement, and worries? What will our theme be? 

“I think it’s fun because you can be creative but it can be hard because you have so many ideas you want to incorporate. It’s hard to narrow it down,” Karalee Ruelas, a teacher from Hughson High stated. 

Ruelas carried on to say, “It’s always fun and it isn’t always about who wins but more of the experiences of being with friends and having the opportunity to get creative and showcase something different and outside of academics. I love that the competition motivates people but I don’t think it’s about that, I think it’s about the memories you’re building, not the floats you’re building. This year the theme is to treasure the past, so each float is about someone looking for some kind of treasure.”

“It is very fun to work together as a team and see it come to life,” Leah Hobby, Hughson’s high freshman class president, stated. Hobby explained, “I want to participate because I want to be able to create something with my peers from scratch, where we can all work together as a team,” “The theme for our float this year is Aladdin because we are going with the theme of treasuring the past,” Hobby noted. 

“I’m very excited to see all the different ideas and designs,” Hayden Ford, Hughson High’s sophomore class president, said, “I love building and painting so it would be really fun to make a float, but we are trying out a different system so I’m little worried, other than that I’m good,” Ford described. Ford continued, “Our theme is Moana because the theme is to treasure the past so Moana goes on this whole adventure to find the heart of Tafiti,” “The parade is on the 23rd and it is on Hughson Ave.” “Float building can be fun but it also can be stressful. It just depends on what perspective you want to look at it,” Ford concluded.

Lily Ulrich states, “What makes me want to participate is to help the student body and school spirit is something that I’m really passionate about.” Their theme of homecoming floats is Pirates of the Caribbean. Ulrich notes, “I feel like we’re more prepared so we can use what we learned last year and use some of our resources to build a better homecoming float.”  “I’m nervous about getting it executed as getting that many people in one period and all cooperating and doing what’s intended to be done is kind of a difficult task but I’m just nervous for the execution but not the competition or anything.” Ulrich goes on to say, “It’s really fun because you get to talk and meet people that you may not see on a daily basis from your class.”

“Tangled, because it’s pretty and it can have the aesthetic to win,” says Linsey Shears, Hughson High’s senior class president. Shears adds, “It’s gonna be Rapunzel’s tower, and there’s gonna be a little patch of land and water. Then, it’s gonna look like the boat got pushed out of the land with lanterns above the boat,” Linsey Shears describes.“I want us to win because we did it last year and we got scammed,” She inputs, and further goes on to continue, “Yeah, it’s fun because it pays off sometimes and see what it actually looks like. It’s my fourth homecoming, and I’m excited because it’s my last one.” Shears then says, “We made a lot of changes this year so I’m kind of excited to see how it goes.”