Home Sweet Homecoming | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of ECU News Services. The author of this post is Jules Norwood.

    Undaunted by the pandemic and the challenges of celebrating while adhering to mass gathering guidelines, East Carolina University's homecoming committee has developed a week of events aimed at entertaining Pirates both on campus and elsewhere.

    After plans for homecoming were postponed in the fall, the committee went back to the drawing board, said Emily Waters, advisor to the student homecoming committee. Before the winter break, they developed plans for two homecoming options — one virtual and one hybrid/virtual. As the spring semester started, the hybrid option was developed and a new name was chosen: Home Sweet Homecoming.

    "We were really intentional about making sure that every event that had an in-person component had a virtual component as well, because we know that ... there aren't as many students here in Greenville," Waters said. "We felt that (with Home Sweet Homecoming) we could embrace our Pirates anywhere in the world."


    The Cannonball Kickoff event at 4 p.m. Monday on the Main Campus Student Center Lawn will feature the ECU marching band and dance team, an appearance by Chancellor Philip Rogers on his first day, and of course a T-shirt giveaway. The event will be streamed live on the ECU Homecoming Facebook page, and students and alumni who interact through the live stream will have opportunities to win T-shirts as well.

    The kickoff will also include a Pirate Pies cookalong with Gwendy's Goodies of Ayden, a trivia competition and an interactive screening of Beyonce's film "Homecoming" using Netflix Teleparty.

    The Spirit Cup, a competition among student organizations and an annual homecoming highlight, will include four events — a skit competition, a banner competition, a canned food drive and a parade float competition. For the skit competition, normally held in Minges Coliseum, the student organizations were challenged to create five 20-second mini-skits, each with a specific theme. They will go head to head throughout the week in a bracket-style challenge on Instagram.

    For the float competition, the teams will have six hours on Friday afternoon to decorate golf carts for Saturday's 10 a.m. homecoming parade, a virtual event streamed on Facebook.

    "We'll line them up and they will come down from the parking garage, and they'll each have two or three minutes in front of the ECU letters, where they'll pause and we'll do a 360-degree view of their golf cart and talk about their organization," Waters said.

    The banners will be displayed in the Main Campus Student Center and posted on the Facebook page.

    Homecoming committee chair Katelyn Ward said she was glad to be able to include some in-person events, but it was also important to include virtual options for those who can't be on campus.

    "There have been times this year when it has been hard to be a student because we weren't given opportunities to do things in person," she said. "It was important to me to allow some in-person events to give the opportunity for the students on campus or in Greenville to be involved.

    "We tried to think of things people would like to participate in ... that would be easy to do no matter where you are, so all these events are very interactive."

    New events this year include the Campus Recreation and Wellness Homecoming Virtual 5K and the Pirate Nation Scavenger Hunt. The 5K can be completed any time from March 15-20, and the registration fee includes a T-shirt and race bib. The scavenger hunt will be hosted on the Scavify app and includes options for hunters in Greenville and those participating elsewhere.

    Throughout the week students will be able to view the top 10 candidates for Captain of the Ship and vote for their favorite. The Captain of the Ship competition replaces the traditional homecoming king and queen and is open to all students regardless of gender or student organization affiliation.

    Other events during the week include Pirate Nation Gives on Wednesday and a virtual bingo game on Thursday. And as always, all citizens of Pirate Nation are encouraged to wear purple for Paint it Purple Friday and to support the baseball team in its game against Illinois State at 4 p.m. Saturday, part of a home weekend series.

    For more information and a complete listing of events and links, visit HERE.