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OUR VIEW: Marching orders Bid to revive Kent State Homecoming parade great idea for city and campus

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December 3, 2007

The Kent Area Chamber of Commerce is talking about reviving the KSU Homecoming parade, and we're all for that.

Kent used to be big on parades. City residents once looked forward not only to a traditional patriotic celebration on Memorial Day but to a pair of celebrations unique to a college town: Campus Day and KSU Homecoming, which both were marked by parades.

Campus Day, a spring celebration that took place in May near the end of the school year, went by the wayside in the 1970s as interest in it declined and the school calendar changed, but the Homecoming parade on East Main Street from the campus into the downtown area remained an important event on the fall calendar.

Interest in Homecoming had its ups and downs, too, but the celebration took on renewed popularity in the early 1980s, when it was paired up with an Octoberfest celebration in the Franklin Avenue entertainment strip that drew huge crowds and became part of the Homecoming festivities.

Octoberfest eventually was discontinued, and KSU pulled the plug on the Homecoming parade a few years later, when it was decided in 2004 to mothball the parade and put more emphasis on other activities, including the Homecoming football game. The city's decision to redesign East Main, adding planters and pedestrian islands that split the four-lane highway in front of the original Kent State campus, also may have been a factor in the demise of the parade.

Last year's Kent Bicentennial parade, which followed the same route as the KSU Homecoming event, was so popular that the Chamber of Commerce has decided to explore ways to bring back the KSU event. KSU President Lester Lefton reportedly supports the idea, and city officials also seem to be on board.

The Homecoming parade was a wonderful tradition that brought together Kent and the campus community. It was great fun, too. We hope the chamber, the city and Kent State can find a way to bring it back.




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