Daily Collegian - Tradition floats on with parade (1st Place Overall)

Though Lenore Lewis and her husband usually arrive at Penn State on Saturdays for the football games, the couple was adamant about arriving early this past weekend to soak in all of the Homecoming hoopla.

"The whole weekend was great," said Lewis, a season ticket holder from New York. "The parade, the game ... there really isn't one thing to pinpoint as being my favorite."

The 2008 Homecoming celebration has come and gone with a week of festivities, a parade and a win against the University of Michigan, providing an exciting atmosphere throughout State College.

The parade on Friday night rolled through the streets of campus and downtown State College for a little more than two hours. The parade began at 6 p.m. with fire trucks from many different fire companies and members of Army ROTC and the Air Force ROTC.

Members of the Homecoming court and Homecoming faculty court followed, driven in convertibles along the parade route.

Despite instructions from the security committee, several people in floats or cars threw things -- including key chains, T-shirts, paper planes and candy -- into the crowd. Kyle Thomas, Homecoming overall security chairman, said he noticed the flying objects, but it was hard to enforce the rules during the parade.

"The captains had their committee members ask people to stop and encouraged groups who had walking people to hand out things instead of throwing them," Thomas (senior-energy, business and finance) said. "But if we saw an organization throwing something, we took note and they would lose points in the float competition."

Triangle fraternity and Association for Women In Science won the float competition with their display of The Lion King , which included a mechanism that had the Disney film characters Pumbaa and Timon chasing the Nittany Lion around a tree.

Some of the floats were extravagant, such as the Alice in Wonderland themed float by Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority, which featured a giant mushroom and Alice stuck in the house. Members of the organization dressed as Alice and Tweedledee and Tweedledum and waved to the crowd.

Lewis said the Alice in Wonderland float was one of her favorites.

"The artistic ability of the kids is incredible," she said. "To create something so visual and pleasing to look at ... that has to take a lot of hard work."

Another highlight of the parade was the many bands.

The State College Area High School band played in the beginning of the parade, the alumni band in the middle and the Penn State Blue Band near the end of the parade. Blue Sapphire PJ Maierhofer and the majorettes broke out glow-in-the-dark batons to entertain the crowd.

Shortly after the Blue Band, the 2009 Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon overall committee rode by doing the 2008 line dance and revealing the theme for Thon 2009, "Dream Forward."

After the parade and pep rally, Anthony Estes (senior-crime, law and justice) and Liz Kernion (senior-economics) were crowned Homecoming king and queen. At halftime during Saturday's game, the Homecoming court was presented on the field.

Kernion, who earlier in the week said she took a "backseat approach" in campaigning for Homecoming queen, said the week was "a whirlwind."

"I hope I'll be able to inspire students to pursue diverse interests and get as active as possible while they're at Penn State," she said.

Estes said he had support from his friends and family the entire week.

"I'm shocked and honored," he said. "All nine people on the court were phenomenal and give so much to Penn State, so I can't really say why I was chosen. It's a privilege to be recognized."

The overall points winners of Homecoming this year were Theta Chi and Omega Phi Alpha. Homecoming overall chairwoman Jehan Arafa (senior-public relations) said the entire week went well and there was increased participation in events and increased quality of participation across the board.

"I made it a point to enjoy every event, but after the win on Saturday night I was on top of the world," Arafa said. "No matter how much we worked on Homecoming, a lot depended on that game and how the students would remember it. After all was said and done, we won and it was great to see how happy all the fans were."