BY JULIA SAXTON

The dresses and suits come out and the floats go up.  It’s that time of year again.  As always the floats will appear in the Homecoming Parade on Friday, September 30th and the winning float will be announced during halftime of the football game later that night.

All four classes must build a float to represent their theme. This year’s Homecoming theme is “Decades,” and each float must somehow show off some aspect of their decade. This year’s seniors have chosen the 50’s and are going with Elvis as their inspiration. Senior class officer Jane Spooner is excited about this year’s float building experience. She is especially fond of the theme.

“Our shirts and float are going to match really well this year,” Spooner says. The usual “tradition” at Mariemont is that the seniors always win.

“We better win because we got ‘gypped’ last year,” Spooner states.

Although the other classes have a fighting chance, Spooner is confident in this year’s senior class.

“All us officers are pumped to see how it looks at the end…which we know will be awesome,” a proud Spooner states. “Everyone knows our mousetrap float was stunning, so this year we’re making our Elvis float even better!”

This year the Juniors are representing the 60’s with a full-out Beatles theme. Even though there was some controversy over which decade to chose, Junior class officer Mara Coyan seems confident in this year’s theme. Coyan says the whole grade is usually involved.

“Anybody that wants to, within the class, can participate in the float building. We always have a few parents that come too.” Coyan adds.

The other issue often debated is who are the lucky people who will get to ride in or on the float.

“Whoever does the most work, generally, gets the privilege,” Coyan states. She also adds that the whole system is fair.  She enjoys participating in the building, too.

“It’s really cool to see the float come together after the week,” she says.

The sophomores received the 70’s and are going with a “disco” theme. The teacher overseeing the sophomore class is Mr. Becksfort, from the English department.

“The students have already put in some good work,” Becksfort says. “They’ve been meeting outside of school to work and plan.”

This is the sophomore’s second try at float building and now most of them are getting the flow of all the homecoming business.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Becksfort says when asked about the actual building of the float. He also said that while it is a little stressful, he enjoys the entertainment the students get out of it.

“It lets the students interact outside of school,” he says. Overall, the sophomores seem to be on the right track.

Although they’re the “newbies” of the school, the Freshmen can’t be completely overlooked in the competition for the best float. The freshmen received the 80’s as their theme and their float is centered on Michael Jackson’s hit “Thriller.” There hasn’t been a lot of talk amongst the freshmen about float building but officer Maddie Timmers says they’ve had a couple meetings and she said, “A lot of parents are helping out.”

The freshmen are running against the wind this year due to their lack of experience but they seem to be holding their heads up.

“I don’t really know too much,” Timmers admits.

The senior, junior, sophomore, and freshmen class floats will be pinned against each other Friday night and the winner will be announced during halftime of this year’s Homecoming football game versus Finneytown.