App State Homecoming Parade back after three years
App state’s cheerleaders and marching band lead the Homecoming Parade.
October 31, 2022
App State’s Homecoming Parade is back for the first time since 2019 after being canceled due to COVID-19 and inclement weather last year.
The parade started at 6 p.m. Friday and lasted for about 30 minutes. It traveled from Watauga County Health Services Lot along King Street into downtown Boone.
This year’s homecoming parade was the first one many students had been able to attend in their college experiences at App State.
“This is my first parade here so I can’t compare it to any other parade but it looked pretty hyped up and everyone’s pretty excited,” said Joe Cockrell, a senior theatre design/technology major. “I came in completely blind so I didn’t know what to expect.”
Part of what makes the homecoming parade so special to some viewers, like Zoe Fite, a junior special education major, is the sense of community it brings to people.
“I think it made it so much more hype in the fact that, like, we came together as a community,” Fite said. “There’s little kids over there and there’s people from Boone and then there’s college students.”
The theme for homecoming this year was APP2K, a memorial to the early 2000s. Many of the parade’s floats and banners mirrored this theme in the spirit of Homecoming.
The parade was led by this year’s grand marshals, Jerry Moore, former Mountaineers’ head football coach from 1989-2012, and former quarterback and 2009 graduate Armanti Edwards, according to an email sent out by Chancellor Sheri Everts.
App State’s cheerleading team marched through the parade, followed by a performance by the Marching Mountaineers.
The parade sported car floats and walking groups from campus departments, sororities and fraternities, residence halls and campus clubs such as the Latin Hispanic Alliance and the Disability Advocacy Club.
Freshman Kyle Kovalchuk was included in the parade with the Kappa Delta and Theta Chi float. He said he believes the parade is an important part of homecoming because it was “a group thing for the whole community to do.”
Other participants were this year’s Miss North Carolina, Karolyn Martin, Team Sunergy’s solar-powered car and Green Yosef with Net Impact.
The Boone Fire Department brought up the rear of the parade with two of their fire trucks.
Immediately after the parade’s conclusion marked the start of APPtoberfest, which was located in the Peacock Lot. There, APPS hosted a pep rally, live music, food trucks and giveaways to prepare for the homecoming game the following day.
MuChao • Nov 1, 2022 at 8:50 am
“The theme for homecoming this year was APP2K, a memorial to the early 2000s. Many of the parade’s floats and banners mirrored this theme in the spirit of Homecoming.”
Sooo no Sheri, less football, and >25% fewer students? Cause that’s how I remember App in the early 2000’s when I was an undergrad. Back before App turned into a degree mill focused solely on football and unimpeded, cancerous growth above all else, especially the well being of their employees (unless of course you’re a coach or an upper admin…)