Nothing Says Small Town Oklahoma Like Homecoming Floats

Last weekend, the Cyril Pirates celebrated one of the rites of all junior and high schools across the country, Homecoming!

What is different about Cyril, and other small Oklahoma towns is that they do Homecoming right!  Complete with decorated floats, working all night to complete them, and waiting patiently for the game to find out which float or floats capture the prize!

Don't get me wrong, we love all of our bigger schools too, but there is just something about a town, where everyone gets behind what is going on at school.  From donkey basketball games, to fundraisers, and finally graduations that the whole town turns out for.

Friday night in Cyril, fans got to see some amazing work.  These floats completely blow me away!  Take a look at the skill level involved in putting these together, then factor in that many evenings and sometimes late nights went into getting these floats finished in time!  What a massive undertaking!

The Cyril Homecoming Parade is a beloved hometown tradition that has not only survived but gets stronger every year. Coach Wendell Whitman was the man who started the tradition here in Cyril and from what I’ve heard, it is said to have started one year when he drove through town with some of his football players in the back of his truck carrying a “dummy” football player from the opposing team (and whether that is true or not, it is a cool story!)

This year's theme was animated movies/cartoons. Classes build their floats in 4-6 days with a $600 limit (recently raised from $300 just a few years ago). Floats have grown more elaborate over the years, incorporating engineering feats such as cars moving back & forth using garage door openers, rotating Christmas trees, smoke from fog machines or blower motors with streamers, and in the past we’ve even had live fish in the canals of Venice and “rain” in the Costa Rican rainforests!

This year:
Seniors: Up
Juniors: Spongebob
Sophomores: Space Jam
Freshmen: Wreck It Ralph
8th Grade: Flintstones
7th Grade: Cars

Previous themes have been holidays, sports, America, fairy tales, commercials, board games, movies, Oklahoma, historical events, and countries,  Cyril's Homecoming Parade and Floats are thought to be in its 65th Year.

Here's a Float from 1960, Sleeping Beauty

And even one from the year I graduated High School, 1977, Star Wars!

What an awesome tradition that includes the whole town of Cyril!  Let's keep it going for many, many more years to come.

Special thanks to Jordan Hughes for supplying the pictures and sharing the stories for this post!

Congratulations to Float Winners:

Junior High Winner: Cars

High School Winner: Spong Bob Squarepants