The Ko Jo Kai and Gamma Sigma Phi social clubs won best Homecoming float. The winners were announced after the third quarter of Saturday’s football game.

Homecoming Parade is an age-old tradition at ACU. Many different student and social clubs participate by creating a float for the parade. For many of the social clubs, the current pledges build the float while several club officers oversee the process.

Jessi Andersen, junior speech pathology major from Millsap and junior representative of Ko Jo Kai, oversaw the building of the Kojie float.

“In April, when Victoria Garza and I were elected as Junior and Senior Reps, we knew that our main responsibility was designing and building the Homecoming float,” Andersen said. “We were mostly in charge of organizing NuNus, buying supplies and keeping float site a positive and super fun atmosphere. ”

The Kojie pledges only had two weeks to complete their entire float.

“We started on Oct. 7 and did not finish until 5 a.m. on Saturday,” Anderson said. “If you would have asked me if the float was going to be finished in time at 3 a.m. on Saturday I would have honestly said no. We went into crazy overdrive and knocked everything out within those last two hours.”

Andersen said all of the hard work paid off when Ko Jo Kai was announced as the women’s float winner. She wasn’t at the game for the announcement, but she found out soon enough that Kojies won.

“I grabbed my phone and I had 7 missed calls and 86 texts,” Anderson said. “I was so happy and screaming and jumping around in my house because I realized that all our hard work paid off.”

The winner of the men’s float was Gamma Sigma Phi. Ryan Carroll, senior biblical text major from Prosper and member of GSP, was also not at the game when the winners were announced.

“I was sleeping when I received the news in form of a Snapchat from Kaiden Walters with the tag line, ‘We did it! I’m so proud to be a Gamma!'” Carroll said.

Winning Homecoming float is more than just a title for clubs.

“Homecoming is the major part of pledging when NuNus get to use their creativity and spirit and show that to all of the past and present members of Ko Jo Kai,” Andersen said. “They worked very hard and, even though this sounds kind of lame, you really do develop so much pride for your club during Homecoming, and that was definitely evident in our performance on Saturday’s parade.”

Ko Jo Kai was announced as the women's float winner for the Homecoming Parade. (Optimist photo by Mandy Lambright)