Onondaga Central
As you know by now, our traditional Homecoming, unfortunately, will not be happening this fall. There is a chance that Homecoming will happen in the Spring now that the football season has been moved to March. What you may not know is, when was the first Homecoming.
According to the record of Onondaga High School yearbooks in the library, the first time Homecoming appears in the yearbook is in the Student Life Section of the 2000-2001 school year, meaning the first Homecoming in its current form, as most of us know it, occurred in the Fall of 2000. I want to thank Mrs. Babinger for helping me sort through the record for yearbooks in the library to find the first Homecoming on record. After talking to OCS alumni and staff, I discovered no recollection of Homecoming as late as 1993. Long-time and beloved English Teacher, Mrs. Ferris states "Homecoming likely existed before 2000, but on a much smaller scale, and the early 2000s is when the level of celebration increased." Homecoming not beginning in its current form until 2000 is a reasonable conclusion. As Onondaga's football team grew more successful and rose to prominence, Homecoming traditions accelerated. Onondaga won football State Championships in 2001, 2002, and 2003, coinciding with the rise of Homecoming. In the years preceding Homecoming, Onondaga's football team struggled and, as a result, Homecoming marked the revival of Onondaga's football team. Tents with vendors selling food and beverages began popping up after 2000 and are very popular and sought-after in our recent homecoming celebrations. Before 2000, the predominant source of food and beverages was the concession stand. At OCS, a new millennium brought a new tradition. Mrs. Ferris added that "SU football players came to the Onondaga Homecoming bonfire to help promote the local State Championship team." The 2001-2002 yearbook states "Homecoming 2001, The traditional bonfire is bigger than ever." The 2000-2001 yearbook which includes Homecoming 2000 shows no photos of a bonfire. However, for Homecoming 2000, there are photos of the car demolition, the Spaghetti dinner, tents selling food, and the traditional parade. The photo of the Spaghetti Dinner that occurs on Friday before homecoming appears to be jammed packed. Homecoming 2000 has a Homecoming King, Joe Whipple, and Homecoming Queen, Maria Spagnola, featured in the yearbook. Social Studies teacher and active leader in OCS extra-curricular activities, Mr. James, said "Homecoming was huge in its first five years. Everyone participated and it was to an even larger scale than today." He explains every sports team was required by coaches after practice to go to the Spaghetti dinner, including football, cross-country, and girls soccer. The girls soccer team would eat at the Spaghetti Dinner and then play in their game. At the time the Spaghetti dinner was at the South Onondaga Fire Station instead of the current location of the High School cafeteria. In the meantime, students would enjoy the bon-fire and wreck-a-car, as they do today. By the end of the night, all the teams and students reunited at the Homecoming Dance, which was highly attended, more back then than in recent years. Homecoming was about the community and OCS coming together. Homecoming 2001 shows the annual pre-game parade and is the first yearbook to feature the float contest between classes. One interesting fact about the Homecoming float contest in Fall 2001 between the classes was the Juniors won. This is in contrast to more recent years where the Senior class perennially wins. The Homecoming 2001 portion of the yearbook shows a picture with a description for each class. The Freshman float theme was "Shooting for the Stars," the Sophomore float was M&M themed "What is it About the Green Ones?" based on an M&M commercial "The Green Ones" where a Little League baseball player hits the baseball far when he eats green M&Ms. The Juniors, who were the winning float, had the theme "On Top of the World." The Senior's float was a patriotic theme, with someone dressed as the statue of liberty and an emphasis on graduation. Mrs. Cummings, English teacher and Onondaga alumni, who was a student during the early years of Homecoming said "Nobody does Homecoming like OCS." She remembers the Henniger Marching Band being in the parade. She added that the tradition of having the Homecoming King and Queen ride in a classic car is the same. Mrs. Cummings noted one addition to Homecoming in more recent years is having community floats in the parade. Based on yearbook photos, community floats were not in the Homecoming parade in the Fall of 2000 or Fall of 2001. Hopefully, we can have Homecoming in the Spring of 2021 and continue a beloved two-decades-old OCS tradition.
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