The smell of grilling meat and frying grease, laughter and squeals of joy filled the air surrounding Cross High’s football stadium last Friday. Homecoming 2022 was well underway.
All high schools celebrate Homecoming in the fall, but none of them can top the celebration held at CHS.
“It’s a community event because Cross High School is a small school,” Edwin Anderson, Class of 1979, said. “Everyone here is connected in some way to a recent graduate or alumni of Cross High School or Central High School, which is where it really started.”
As a two-day event this year, the school closed part of Trojan Road on Thursday afternoon for its Homecoming parade featuring the 2022 Homecoming court, Blue Thunder Marching Band, Cross’s JROTC and other distinguished members of the community. People were standing shoulder-to-shoulder all along the parade route, but Friday was when things really got cooking.
“We were parking people for tonight’s game at 4:30 p.m. and the game’s not until 7:30 p.m.,” Matthew Bradberry, Cross High’s assistant principal of athletics, said. “I probably counted at least 10 pull-behind grills on trucks coming through.”
Once people were parked, tailgating tents went up in a flash. Starting in the ‘60s, there were graduating classes from every decade in attendance. Everyone was decked out in blue and white with most people wearing specially made t-shirts.
“I feel like we’re probably one of the only communities nationwide that has this much culture and tradition,” Anderson said. “We just come back and love seeing each other.”
And while Cross High is in a very close-knit community, its alumni are spread out nationally and internationally.
“I live in Maryland, and the majority of people out here travel back from all over,” Anderson said. “It’s almost like a family reunion.”