Every fall, Baylor Homecoming begins in the heart of campus, where the glow of the Eternal Flame stretches across Fountain Mall. The Ten at Ten: A Mass Meeting Experience marks the start of the weekend as a moment when the Baylor Family gathers to celebrate tradition, renew community and reflect on the university’s motto: “Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana, Pro Mundo” — “For the Church, for Texas, for the World.”

Generation after generation, Baylor students continue to return to the campus their parents called home. For these families, homecoming is more than just a campus tradition; it is a celebration of a legacy.

Like Lalani and the women who came before her, Clemons sees homecoming not just as a weekend of celebration, but as a living, evolving tradition that showcases pride and binds Baylor women and the Waco community.

Depending on when they graduated, Baylor alumni will give you a different profile of their time in Waco. From year to year, those differences might be as small as a better football record or a few new faculty, but when you compare Baylor of the 1970s to the campus we call home today, the two schools are vastly different.

“One of the early leaders of the Dr Pepper Museum was a Baylor alumnus,” Summar-Smith said. “He was a Dr Pepper drinker for many years, Wilton Lanning. So I think Waco has a lot of identity in Dr Pepper and a lot of identity in Baylor, and so they’re just a natural partnership.”