Issue: Summer 2012 | Posted: June 18, 2012
Homecoming 2011 Illuminates Campus
Homecoming 2011 might be remembered most for a new event on the Great Lawn called “Union Night.”
Outdoor festivities on that Friday evening culminated with a homecoming fireworks display that rewarded visitors who remembered their cameras with some outstanding shots of the pyrotechnics as a backdrop for campus landmarks such as Miller Tower.
The new event was added to many traditional gatherings during a week of Homecoming festivities.
Earlier in the week, about 1,000 Union students, faculty and staff participated in the ninth annual “Campus and Community: A Day of Remembrance and Service” and worked on more than 70 community service projects in the local community. Many classes at Union are canceled on that day to allow for these projects to unfold.
Buster the Bulldog and Homecoming Queen Andi Schreiber pose for a picture during the homecoming weekend festivities.
Other events during the week included a special Homecoming chapel service in which Union recognized members of the class of 1962 celebrating their 50-year reunion. The class members attended a luncheon following the chapel service and then took a tour of the former campus in downtown Jackson.
The chapel service also featured the annual alumni awards. Tom McAfee, president of Hallmark Systems, Inc., in Macon, Ga., received the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award and Jerol Swaim, president of Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge, Ark., received the Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Andi Schreiber, a senior from Murfreesboro, Tenn., was selected as the 2011 Homecoming queen and crowned at halftime of the Lady Bulldogs’ 82-45 win over the University of St. Francis (Ill.). She is the daughter of Mike and Angie Schreiber.
After the women’s game, the Bulldogs defeated Belhaven University 87-66. At halftime of the men’s game, the women of Zeta Tau Alpha were awarded with the Presidential Homecoming Cup. The award honors the student organization that has shown outstanding service during the last school year.
Other Homecoming attendants were Halee Ackerman, a freshman from Carson City, Nev.; Sarah Helton, a sophomore from Franklin, Tenn.; Anna Marie Deschenes, a junior from Jackson, Tenn; Desirae Suggs, a junior from Savannah, Ga.; Megan Daniel, a senior from Memphis; Meredith Wood, a senior from Brentwood, Tenn.; and Erin Spencer, a senior from Marion, Ark.
“It was an exciting weekend of events celebrating all that God has done in the life of Union University,” said Josh Clarke, Union’s director of alumni relations. “Being able to hear from our most recent alumni to those who graduated in the 1950s was a great reminder that the reach of Union continually spans the generations and the globe.”