By Shane Mead | Reporter
The night before the Homecoming parade, Baylor prefaced their event with a post on X revealing the winning floats. While there is an element of competition to the floats, these float chairs agree that for them, the homecoming parade which is the longest-standing in the nation’s history goes beyond obtaining a ranking.
Kappa Omega Tau (KOT) finished in first this year with their Christmas-themed float titled “Santa Claws Workshop.” It featured a Christmas tree, sleigh with reindeer, gifts and a workshop, where elves are presumably making toys. On the back was a small homage to Christmas on Fifth Street, an annual Christmas celebration the school hosts with KOT.
“We have so many guys that put in so much effort into [Christmas on Fifth] and have for so many years,” McKinney senior Blake McGraw, KOT’s head float chair said. “We wanted to have an ode to them and help recognize their hard work as well.”
It may have come as a shock to see a snow-filled parade float decked out in Christmas decor just five days before Halloween, but McGraw said the reaction was priceless.
“There’s a certain joy that comes along with the idea of Christmas, and you could see that on every little kid’s face,” he said. “They’d see Santa Claus and their smiles would just radiate and make you want to smile. It makes you really happy and satisfied with what we were able to do.”
For McGraw, the purpose of the floats went far beyond a first place finish. Similarly, head chair float of Chi Omega‘s float, Memphis senior Caroline Williams, drew her purpose from something outside of the competition, in which the group did not rank.
According to Williams, Chi Omega’s float dove deep into Baylor’s history by honing in on the school’s tradition. The float was based off the Brazos Belle riverboat that chugged along the Brazos from the 1990s until 2008.
“That’s a piece of Baylor that sororities and fraternity people actually knew about,” she said. “They would host formals, semi-formals and dinners on the Brazos Belle when it sat on the river.”
The inside of their riverboat included murals depicting Baylor’s history, ranging from 2011 Heisman winner Robert Griffin III to the Baylor Line to former president Ronald Reagan speaking to the school back in 1988.
“We wanted to really push the Baylor tradition and the Baylor family aspect, which is what homecoming is supposed to be about,” Williams said. “I mean, people from generations of Baylor come back year and year again because that’s what being part of the Baylor family is.”
Pi Phi’s float in partnership with Phi Kappa Chi placed second and took parade-goers on a trip to Neverland, drawing its inspiration from “Peter Pan.” It contained recognizable elements from the Disney movie like the clock tower and Peter Pan’s ship, Pi Beta Phi float chairs Tulsa, Okla. senior Abby Morris and McKinney senior Anna Price said.
“When we thought of Peter Pan and Neverland, we saw that as a really cool opportunity to portray Baylor as Neverland to play into that idea that Baylor is this special place that we never want to leave,” Morris said.
According to Price, her family and legacy at Baylor is what gives meaning to her experience as float chair.
“My dad went to Baylor, so I grew up going to the Homecoming parades every year,” she said. “My family coming [for Homecoming] and getting to see it makes it so much more fun.”
