Perfect fall weather brought community, alums, and students to downtown Sylva for the annual parade to celebrate the university. Kids were lining the West Main Street, Nov. 7 cheering on the floats and waiting for the traditional candy in their small hands.
The event is a kickoff for the celebration of homecoming weekend.
Live music from mobile DJs, great food spots and the catamount legacy brought people together for the parade and many lingered for the after party and bowling with alums.
WCU Chancellor led the parade, followed by dozens of floats built by students representing organizations from all over campus and the end was the Pride of the Mountains marching band.
Residence halls at WCU were tasked with creating floats for their buildings. Residence assistants partnered with their residents, spending months in some cases to get everything together. For Albright-Benton RA, Isabella McCann, this was the first time participating and she enjoyed every minute of it.
“My team and I have spent a lot of time coming up with an idea and once we had the idea we sketched out how it would work,” McCann said. “Once we had all the materials needed, we came together and put it all together. What I’m most excited about for the parade is to just be with my team and have fun. We have been looking forward to this since we heard about it and we have put in so much work.”
WCU Provost, Dr. Richard Starnes, was there to support current students and alumni in celebrating homecoming.
“It’s a tremendous amount of work, the folks in student affairs do so much work to make this happen. As do the student organizations and the groups like Pride of the Mountains marching band. They put a lot of effort, weeks of planning and construction and all kinds of things that go into this. It’s a great celebration for Western for the alums and for the town of Sylva,” Starnes said.
The parade ended with the Pride of the Mountains marching band performance. Hundreds of band members marched down Main Street playing in unison.
The parade ended at 6:30 p.m. and Main Street opened back up. Catamounts took to supporting businesses in the area to catch up with former friends and colleagues. The night slowly died down as everyone prepared for the big game against the Mercer Bears and the tailgate before that.
