photo by: John Young

A float that looks like Campanile with Jayhawk bat wings makes its way down Massachusetts Street during the KU homecoming parade Friday Oct. 30, 2015.

The Kansas University Alumni Association announced the theme for Homecoming 2016 on Friday, along with some other key information. Last year, with KU Homecoming on Halloween, the theme was a fitting “Ghosts of Jayhawks Past.” This year’s Oct. 22 homecoming has a more open-ended one: “Rock Chalk Super Hawk.”

Here’s some more Homecoming 2016 information to note, according to the Alumni Association:

Date: Oct. 22. The Saturday homecoming football game follows a week of homecoming festivities kicking off Oct. 16.

Opponent: KU will play the Oklahoma State University Cowboys at Memorial Stadium. Time TBA.

Parade: 6 p.m. Oct. 21 on Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence, followed by a pep rally on Eighth Street between Massachusetts and New Hampshire streets.

More information: As other events and information is determined, the Alumni Association will post it online at homecoming.ku.edu, on Twitter @KU_Homecoming and on Facebook at facebook.com/KUHomecoming.

People in charge: The KU Alumni Association and the student-led Homecoming Steering Committee are teaming up to plan festivities. Student director of Homecoming 2016 is Katie Gerard, a junior from Hanover.

photo by: John Young

A float that looks like Campanile with Jayhawk bat wings makes its way down Massachusetts Street during the KU homecoming parade Friday Oct. 30, 2015.

photo by: Mike Yoder

An entry from the annual KU Sign Competition interpreting the 2015 homecoming theme, Ghosts

• Watkins and Miller history, in print: A smaller niche of KU alumnae had a celebration last weekend, the women of “Kitchen 8.” Members of this group of Watkins and Miller scholarship halls alumnae gathered for a reception to launch “Watkins and Miller Halls,” a new KU History book published by Historic Mount Oread Friends. The book, compiled by Watkins Hall alumna Norma Decker Hoagland of Leavenworth, covers varying experiences and activities of the women who lived in the halls from 1926 until the present, Hoagland said.

The option these halls have provided so many women has been invaluable, said Hoagland, who lived in Watkins from 1969 to 1971. “I couldn’t afford to go to school if I hadn’t had my Watkins Hall scholarship.”

The book is available for purchase on the University Press of Kansas website, kuecprd.ku.edu. In case you were wondering about the group name, “Kitchen 8,” Hoagland explains: “Watkins and Miller Scholarship Halls each have seven kitchens, where we cook for each other in a family-type atmosphere. When you graduate or leave the halls, you become a member of Kitchen 8.”

*
• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage at KUToday.com. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.