It is well known that Penn State has one of the richest senses of tradition in the world. Just like this past weekend’s Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts (more commonly known as Arts Fest), Homecoming is a celebration that ignites the passion and glory of Old State in all of its alumni, students, and fans. As we have just passed the 100 days till Homecoming mark, I felt as though we needed a reminder as to why we are celebrating such a great tradition.

The tradition for alumni to return to Penn State was started shortly after the Civil War in July of 1869. At that time, Penn State was known as the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, and a new event called “Harvest Home” was established. The celebration was a bit different than it is today; complete with candles and lectures on agriculture (could you imagine if we did that today?) In 1869 almost 100 people arrived to celebrate, and like most Penn State traditions Harvest Home began to flourish. One year later over 2,000 came back to honor Penn State.

Penn State’s first Homecoming football game was played in September of 1920 against Ivy League School Dartmouth. The Lions won 14-7, making head coach Hugo Bezdeck proud of the Nittany Lions. The tradition was then set in stone; we were on our way to an outstanding homecoming experience. Today, more than 130 years later, thousands of alumni and fans that come back to State College to celebrate, and it would be hard to imagine Homecoming without them.

Each year, a team of students works hard for their peers to make Homecoming the best it can possibly be. They work all through the Spring, Summer, and Fall to create the best experience possible, simply because they have such a love for their school and its rich tradition. The next few weeks, we will be thanking those people and learning more about what they are doing for us as well as what new things they are planning for Homecoming this year. As for now, get excited for a few of the upcoming events.

TailGreat
Saturday, August 30^th
9am-kickoff
Bryce Jordan Center

Homecoming Night Out
Thursday, September 18^th
8pm-close
Café 210

Homecoming Day of Service
Sunday, September 21^st
10am
Alumni Hall

For a list of more events, check out http://homecoming.psu.edu/calendar.php

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Tags: alumni, events, history, Homecoming, overalls, tradition

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under Homecoming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.