School pride and excitement were in the air the week of Oct. 21 for Bakersfield College’s Homecoming week, which concluded with the football game on Saturday, Oct. 25. The week’s events included movie screenings and band performances. Some of the events that the Student Government Association had planned were called off due to lack of participation.
“There were a couple things we had to cancel. There wasn’t enough participation,” said SGA President Lyne Mugema. “But we made do with what we had.”
One of the events that was cancelled was a campus contest, which would include a tug-of-war game. With the lack of participation, Mugema said the game “would not have been very fulfilling.” The contest was one of the last events to be planned, and Mugema said with a bit more time it would have worked out.
An event that did work out was the movie screenings held on campus. Mugema said that they did not keep track of how many students went to the screenings.
“The idea was just that when students had time, they could come in and watch a movie,” she said.
The final festivities took place during halftime of the game against Glendale and started off by honoring all fall athletes, who gathered on the field and walked around the track. After the fall athletes were BC faculty members in Corvettes, including Mildred Lovato, a BC vice president and school president Greg Chamberlain. They were followed by BC alumni cheerleaders.
Next around the track were trucks decorated by BC clubs, including ones by the Agriculture Club, the Medical Club, and the Geology Club. The participating Agriculture Club members wore pig masks for their “Hoggywood” truck. The Medical Club truck was called “Franken-Med,” keeping with both the Homecoming movie theme and the Halloween spirit. The Geology Club encouraged recycling with their truck.
Finally, the nominees for Homecoming King and Queen were taken around the track. The nominees for King were Elliot Blakslee, Greg Snider, Jaffar Agha and Gerrit Otten and the nominees for Queen were Janene Wendrick, Nicole Romo, Seggan Moore, and Danae Damron. Lovato announced that the King and Queen were Otten and Damron.
“It’s so excting!” Damron said shortly after being crowned. “And I won with my partner!”
“It’s an honor to be the king,” said Otten.
Damron said that they both campaigned for each other, and that she would not have won without all the support she received.
At the game, Mugema was still a bit too busy with the week’s events to decide how successful this year’s Homecoming was.
“I hear it went really well,” she said. “But when you’re at the center of the storm, it’s hard to tell. Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out.”