#TBT Homecoming

A look back at UNLV's earliest Homecoming events.

Editor's Note

: Due to COVID-19, we will be celebrating Rebel Homecoming 2020 in unique ways. Stay home for homecoming and enjoy our virtual events to show your Rebel spirit. Follow along on Instagram and be sure to share your activities with #RebelHomecoming.  

Have a piece of Homecoming history to share? Tell us about it here.

The first NSU homecoming was held in January 1966 and featured a basketball game with the University of Nevada Wolf Pack at the Las Vegas Convention Center instead of football. The Morrill Hall Bell served as the trophy to be awarded to the victor. The rivalry trophy later shifted to the Fremont Cannon. (UNLV Special Collections) Selection of homecoming queen at halftime during the basketball game on Jan. 10, 1966. (UNLV Special Collections) Students in cowboy shirts and hats fit in with the theme of 1979 homecoming: The Great Western Rebellion. Other events during Homecoming Week that year included a lasso rope contest, square dance lessons, horseshoes, and a covered wagon race. Rita Lucas was the first African-American to be UNLV’s homecoming queen, November 1971. She’s pictured with her attendants Barbie Apple, left, and Susan DiBiase. (UNLV Special Collections) A really big deal. Tanya the Elephant (an entertainer from Circus Circus) became the 1971 honorary homecoming queen. Pictured here, Bonnie Braiker-Gordon, a member of UNLV's drill team, accompanies Tanya during the celebration.

This CSUN-sponsored pie-eating contest turned into a crazy pie fight at a campus homecoming event near the Student Union in 1975. (UNLV Special Collections) Parades have been a long-standing UNLV homecoming tradition and students spent hours working on their elaborately decorated floats. For Homecoming '76, this float resembling the Star Trek Enterprise was the winning entry and matched that year's theme, "Space - The Final Frontier." (UNLV Special Collections)   In 2019, UNLV’s eldest living alumna Audrey James (’65, ’71) was crowned honorary homecoming queen at 105 years of age and presided over the Scarlet and Gray parade.
The UNLV Alumni Association brought back the popular community Homecoming festival in 2017 featuring a new twist: booths featuring all of the colleges and many campus units to highlight our academics. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has temporary paused this new tradition, we look forward to the next time we can celebrate together. More than 3,000 people attended!

 

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