EXHIBITS
Where the Sagebrush Grows: A History of USU Homecoming Traditions: Greek Life at Homecoming
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Greek Life at Homecoming
Another popular tradition was the decoration of fraternity/sorority houses and the dorms on the USU campus. Each fraternity designed and built a display based on the themes of Homecoming. The displays were judged by students, faculty, and alumni with prizes awarded to the best displays. One example of a judging sheet used these criteria:
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Appropriateness to the Spirit of Homecoming
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Cleverness of the display’s basic idea
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Originality of design
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Construction
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Use of the house in the display[1]
The end result of these decorating competitions meant that the entire road leading to the University was decorated in full regalia for the celebration.
The trend of decorating buildings extended on campus, as well. This King’s Verdict display was built on the Block A circa 1950 along with these decorations on the Engineering Building.
In addition to decorating their houses, fraternities and sororities were invited to enter parade floats each year. These impressive, time-consuming floats usually had an encouraging message or theme and required a lot of teamwork to create. As a result, these floats were often crowd favorites in the parade. Prizes were also awarded for floats that were beautiful, fitting to the theme of Homecoming, or particularly creative.[2]
