I”ve heard it more than once, and it makes me laugh every time.
“Moscow is such a small town,” people say. “So homecoming isn”t really that impressive.”
Call it a side effect of my small-town roots, but I can”t take these people seriously. But instead of trying to convince them otherwise – because yes, to someone from a big city, Moscow is considered small – I will explain what a good homecoming celebration means to me.
Lyndsie Kiebert
I come from a community of approximately 500 people. My high school had about 100 students overall when I graduated and I knew everyone”s names. Like many small high schools, our Homecoming Week was a big deal – even if only to us, the little dot along the highway in the Idaho panhandle.
I played sports year-round, but I know homecoming brought something special to the town in the eyes of many people who lived there. It involved student athletes, non-athletes, teachers, community members and alumni, all in varying amounts – everyone rallied around a tiny school they once called home.
Homecoming wasn”t necessarily all about the athletes and the sporting events of the week either. Sure, I looked forward to the volleyball and football games, but I looked forward to the hallway decorating contest too, and the pep rallies centered on the coveted spirit stick and the ridiculous dress-up days.
The ever-present lowerclassmen versus upperclassmen mentality peaked during that one week out of the year, and anything was fair game in the competition for the title of most spirited class. I am both proud and ashamed of the things I did to obtain that spirit stick for my class of 2014, and I made memories during my high school homecoming years that I know I”ll never forget.
In the end, it wasn”t about how big my high school was or the scale of the Friday football game. It was about the genuine support everyone showed during the week. Just seeing everyone participate proved the worth of a small-town homecoming.
Becoming a Vandal and participating in the University of Idaho”s Homecoming Week for the first time last year, I saw a lot of similarities between my own down-home homecoming and the homecoming celebrations held at UI.
Various events make up the bulk of the week, and the Vandal football game serves as a sort of cap to the whole thing – but it”s not necessarily the basis for the entire celebration. The Saturday morning Homecoming Parade is rich in community participation and represents the best of this “small town.” Prideful silver and gold can be seen across all ages and through the spectrum of university involvement, which is something I admire.
Homecoming means something different to everyone, but I believe the same message resonates in both my hometown and in Moscow.
It”s not the size that makes homecoming so wonderful. It”s the morale around one institution, one community, and the idea that this place is worth celebrating.
Maybe it”s just not in my nature to need a massive, glorified Homecoming Week. I don”t need to experience the homecomings of bigger institutions like at the University of Alabama or Kentucky to enjoy myself and the place where I attend college.
I am a Vandal, and the value of our truly genuine homecoming overrides any argument that Moscow is too small to have an impressive celebration.
Lyndsie Kiebert can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @lyndsie_kiebert