When PHS announced their 2022 HOCO (Homecoming) candidates last week.
I asked when this happened. My answer was a few years ago. Until then, football boys would pick the football queen, the band would pick the band sweetheart, and the student body decided the homecoming queen (if there was one).
We wondered what happened to football queen candidates. In case you are unaware, football queens have been around in Post High School for almost as long as football.
We looked back into PHS “Caprock” annuals from 1938 to 2001 to see who had the honor of being crowned football royalty.
One big difference was the prestige the queen received in during this time. In the 1930s through the 1950s, the queen had a place of honor in the Caprock yearbooks. Many of these years, the queen had professional photos dressed in suits or evening gowns (aka formals), hair styled and lipstick just perfect. Most of these photos took an entire page in the annual. During this time, there were only eleven grades so they may have been 16 or 17 years old, but they looked like movie stars.
By the 1960s, the football queen and her court, or at least the other candidates, might be in the pictures. These were pictures taken at the homecoming game or the pep rally before the game during the crowning. It might have been at the beginning of the homecoming football game; regardless, they had their special place on the field during the game. All the little girls in the stands dreamed of the day when they would set in the honored place and be the football queen for the Antelopes.
There were as many different types of crowns as there were years. During the 50s and early 60s, the “crown” was a football helmet. The queen might be holding it, or she might be wearing it. It might be decorated or look like it came right off a player’s head. There were times it was construction paper cut in the shape of a crown. This was usually black or gold with some words written in glue and glitter. I have heard some offspring got to play with the football queen crowns years after, while others still hold them in a place of honor.
By the 1990s, the crown was a tiara. If these girls got to keep the tiaras, I imagine little girls playing football queens.
We come to the present day, and there are HOCO candidates. The student body selects five girls. From these candidates, there will be a football queen, a homecoming queen, and a band sweetheart. For years there was a large Exes group that had their celebrations around homecoming. They always had a homecoming queen that would be crowned at the banquet before the football game. The ladies that were the exes’ candidates would be recognized at the ballgame later that night and again at the ex’s dance after the game.
As the country song says, Time Changes Everything. One thing that may be different but is still going on is Homecoming.
Welcome home! Get out and enjoy the festivities.