It’s KU Homecoming week; here’s what you need to know

photo by: Mike Yoder

Annual KU Sign Competition interpreting this years homecoming theme - Ghosts

This year’s Kansas University Homecoming football game is on Halloween, inspiring the spooky Homecoming week theme, “Ghosts of Jayhawks Past.” “An early kickoff Saturday against Oklahoma would get everyone home in time to trick or treat,” the KU Alumni Association says. “…after celebrating a KU victory, of course. Sooners, BEWARE! See you at Homecoming 2015!”

The Jayhawks kick off against Oklahoma University at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium. Courtesy of KUalumni.org, here’s a lineup of key festivities leading up to the big game.

• Homecoming Food Fest and Jayhawk Jingles skits — 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Adams Alumni Center. There will be free food and music.

• NPHC Fall Stroll Off — 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union. A new event for Homecoming, the stroll off — a tradition among historically black National Pan-Hellenic Council fraternities and sororities — is a competition featuring organization members showing off their signature moves and calls in line formation.

• Haunted Hotcakes Pancake Feed — 9 to 11 p.m. Thursday in the Adams Alumni Center parking lot. Cost is $5 per person.

• Replant Mount Oread — 10:30 a.m. through early afternoon Friday in front of Joseph R. Pearson and Carruth O’Leary halls, West Campus Road. Anyone is invited to drop in and help plant new trees and shrubs. Learn more about the Replant effort, make a donation to support the project, or sign up to volunteer at replant.ku.edu.

• Homecoming Parade — 6 p.m. Friday starting at South Park, traveling down Massachusetts Street and ending at Eighth and New Hampshire streets. This year’s parade grand marshal is Catherine Carmichael, the reigning Miss Kansas World and a 2014 KU graduate and former KU volleyball player. Read more about her here.

• Homecoming Pep Rally — 7 p.m., or immediately following the parade, at Eighth and New Hampshire streets. Football Coach David Beaty, the Marching Jayhawks, KU spirit squad, Big Jay and Little Jay will be on hand to support the football team.

Visit kualumni.org for a full schedule of events planned the rest of the week. Or stop by the Homecoming table on the Watson Library lawn from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily through Friday.

The annual KU Homecoming sign competition entries were on display Monday on campus — love this one where some Ghost(buster)s of Jayhawks past are decimating a Stay Puft version of the Sooner mascot with their proton packs. See all the entries in [this online photo gallery][5] from Journal-World photographer Mike Yoder.

Contact me, via email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187 or on Twitter @saramarieshep.

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