For the Senior Year blog, click here.
HAMILTON — This being his senior year, Kaylen Parsons was prepared to go all out for homecoming.
Early in the school year, he started making plans for a “Braveheart Rush,” in which he and his crew would gather at a nearby shopping center dressed in kilts and with faces painted blue, entering Schwarm Stadium en masse.
“But that didn’t happen,” he said. “With all the moving of dates and the dance being pushed back three weeks, it was just kind of ridiculous.”
So they — Parsons and his friend Ryan Clark were the organizers — settled on a tailgate party at the last minute. “Thank God for Facebook,” Clark said.
“We were going to do a hot tub in the back of his truck,” Parsons said. “But we found out that we could have done some serious damage.
“We thought about doing a Slip ’n Slide,” he said, “but with the gravel and blacktop in a parking lot, that wasn’t such a good idea, either.”
But for the 40 or so students who showed up at the “baseball lot” off Brookwood Avenue, it’s sufficient enough to have a football to toss around, a Bengals’ cornhole set and the bed of a pickup filled with ice and sugary soft drinks.
“We’ll just be chillin’ here until six,” Parsons said, “then the shirts come off and the paint goes on.”
“Uhhh, my shirt’s not coming off,” Clark said.
Someone in the lot shouts, “One-One, Get ’er Done,” and John Stoll approaches with a Dr. Pepper in his hand. “I’m very disappointed in our senior slogan.”
Parsons explains that class slogans at Hamilton High aren’t official nor voted on, but people start using different phrases until one sticks. “Last year, (the Class of 2010) started with ‘Dime Time,’” he said. “But that got overthrown by ‘One-O, You Know.’
“I hadn’t heard ‘One-One, Get ’er Done’ until this morning,” Clark said.
“It won’t last,” Parsons said, assuring his friends. “That’ll be this year’s ‘Dime Time.’ ”
As the lot fills with teenagers, Parsons comes to a realization they may not have enough paint, so he ducks out to Hobby Lobby to buy more. When he gets back, he helps a few of his classmates douse their upper bodies with blue paint and white lettered slogans. Parsons doesn’t have time to get himself painted before the tailgaters start their march to the Dawg Pound, the end section of bleachers where the students sit.
But by the time he takes his place front and center, however, he’s managed to pick up a few stripes of blue on his face and in his goatee before the first chants of “Here we go, Big Blue, here we go” start up.
It’s not quite a “Braveheart Rush,” but it only lacks the kilts.
'My heart was racing
Kayla Rice was in her anatomy class (now dropped) last Thursday when the announcement came over the loudspeaker about who made homecoming court.
“My heart was racing so fast waiting for that announcement, I couldn’t stand it,” she said. “When I heard my name, I was so relieved.”
Rice said that when she was a little girl, she had aspirations of gaining distinctions like Homecoming Queen, but when those things actually start happening, all she thinks about is how honored she feels to have the respect and admiration of her peers.
But she found that fame has its price. After the announcement, she started getting whiffs of rumors, the kinds of things she’s not comfortable talking about, but enough to cause her some stress as she started making arrangements for the whirlwind week ahead.
“I’ve never had to deal with any of that stuff before, so I was taking it very offensively,” she said. “I just had to be the bigger person and let it go.”
On the night of the crowning, she was excused from her cheerleading duties so she could tend to homecoming court matters. Before the game started, she made a visit to the Dawg Pound — the section of bleachers where the students sit — dressed in a handsome, conservative suit and spiked black heels, to receive the blessings of her peers and get her picture taken over and over again with various friends.
“My parents are really nervous,” she said.
Aren’t you?
“I’m nervous about walking in these shoes,” she said.
The court gathered on the sidelines in front of the Dawg Pound near the end of the second quarter, and their parents struggle with corsages and boutonnieres. It seemed like an interminable process as they marched from around the field and waited on the far side at the 50 yard line while the potential kings and queens — eight of them in all – were introduced along with their parents and other escorts.
Finally, when she heard her name announced as the Homecoming Queen, Rice said she nearly fainted.
“My body just went numb,” she said later. “I was so stoked. I just tried to hold in my tears and not let it all out.”
Now, she gets to savor the feeling because due to construction of the new Hamilton High School gym, the homecoming dance isn’t until Oct. 23. There, she’ll finish up her duties as Homecoming Queen, until next year, when she gets to come back and place the crown on the 2011 queen.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
About the Author