Neither an injured cheerleader nor 90° weather could put a stop to the 2017 University City Homecoming parade. Each float tapped into the theme “Once Upon a Homecoming.” Floats varied from “Alice in Wonderland” to “The Wizard of Oz” and all the way to the solar eclipse.

Cheerleader Victoria Cushshon, freshman, was injured just the day before at the Homecoming pep rally. She was dropped in the middle of a stunt on the gym floor. When she fell she hurt her knee, the same knee that she had already injured once before.

“It was nothing too serious but it did hurt a lot,” said Cushshon.

Cushshon was extremely upset because she was looking forward to the parade, but there was a solution. While the cheerleading squad walked down the street, a car followed closely behind with Cushshon sitting in the trunk so she could still participate.

Beyond Cushshon’s perch, one could see a lot of floats from many different district schools, high school clubs and teams. The robotics team drove around in a truck with their robot rolling beside them. The jazz band had a few of their members such as Cooper Dietzler, junior, Henry Giles, sophomore, and Daniel Pomerantz, senior, on a trailer consistently playing music. A trend for the elementary schools was to focus on classic fairytales. The competition was fierce.

For the first time in University City Homecoming history, there was a tie for the first place float. The tie was between Jackson Park Elementary and Pershing Elementary. Jackson Park came out in force dancing to loud music on their float and Pershing focused on an “Alice in Wonderland” theme with all of the kids dressed up as either mushrooms or the Tweedle twins. Second place was taken by Barbara C. Jordan Elementary whose float was based on “The Wizard of Oz” and had teachers dressed up as the characters. Lastly, third place was held by the U. City field hockey team and their eclipse float with a huge moon on the back.

The field hockey team is known for their huge, intricate and first place floats, but the team wasn’t too sad to hear they had placed third.

“The float was one last hurrah for us, so we were happy to win third place,” said Ma’Kaya Johnson, senior.

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