No.6: Homecoming Parade

Back in the day, the Tupelo High School Band led the way for each year's Homecoming Parade through Downtown Tupelo. (They still do.) Each class constructed a float by covering someone's truck with a chicken wire frame stuffed with toilet paper. I remember working on our sophomore float at the Coca Cola Bottling Plant.

High School students met for pep rallies in the gym on the afternoon of home football games, and sometimes for big basketball games. Each class would sit together in sections of the bleachers. At one point in the pep rally, the sophomore cheerleaders would lead the sophomores in a cheer, the juniors cheerleaders would lead the juniors, and the senior cheerleaders ... You get the idea. A group of teachers would decide among themselves which class had out-cheered the other classes and the winner was awarded the "spirit stick."
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For homecoming, the pep rally had the added feature of the presentation of the homecoming court.