It was a Homecoming celebration<\/span> a century in the making. <\/span><\/p>\n This year\u2019s 100th anniversary edition of Eagle Family Homecoming, a must-attend happening that included both time-honored traditions and exciting new events, kicked off on Oct. 16. Before concluding a week later with a victorious football tilt against Weber State, the celebration brought Eagle Pride home for thousands of EWU students, alumni and friends.<\/span><\/p>\n Kelsey Hatch-Brecek \u201921, director of EWU Alumni Relations, called it a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime\u201d opportunity to indulge in all things Eastern. The EWU community was happy to seize that opportunity; hanging banners, painting windows and decking out campus classrooms and offices with red and white. Among the new events was a speculator, donor-funded fireworks extravaganza after the football game, and a \u201cLighting of the Water Tower\u201d that permanently spotlighted the logo on Eastern\u2019s iconic 102-foot-tall water receptacle. Transformed into a beacon of Eagle pride \u2014 one visible to the campus community and passing aircraft alike \u2014 the tower will now, say Eric and Denise Clements, the donors who made the lights possible, become an even more unambiguous landmark.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe anticipated a big group of alumni and community members turning out to celebrate,\u201d says Hatch-Brecek. \u201cThey did, and it was truly a once-in-a-century example of Eagle pride.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n After the lights flooded the tower, attendees were invited to walk down the hill to join Eagle student athletes at Reese Court for \u201cEagle MadNest,\u201d another new event. MadNest featured members of the EWU women\u2019s, men\u2019s and wheelchair basketball teams, each of whom participated in skills contests, mingled with visitors in meet-and-greets, and offered insights into their upcoming seasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Certainly no Homecoming would have been complete without the tried and true old favorites. In 2023, these included the annual president\u2019s breakfast, decoration competitions, an evening pep rally and bonfire, and, of course, downtown bed races. <\/span><\/p>\n A particularly poignant feature of the 100th Homecoming Anniversary celebration was a walk-though exhibit mounted by the Alumni Association and the JFK Library Archives. The \u201cWalk Through the Decades\u201d exhibition, held in the beautifully restored Hargreaves Hall Reading Room, used photographs, video and memorabilia to document EWU\u2019s development since 1923. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe anticipated a big group of alumni and community members turning out to celebrate,\u201d says Hatch-Brecek. \u201cThey did, and it was truly a once-in-a-century example of Eagle pride.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eastern celebrates 100 years of coming home. It was a Homecoming celebration a century in the making. This year\u2019s 100th anniversary edition of Eagle Family Homecoming, a must-attend happening that included both time-honored traditions and exciting new events, kicked off on Oct. 16. Before concluding a week later with a victorious football tilt against Weber…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":2531,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-2530","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","stories_categories-campus","stories_tags-fall-winter-2023-24"],"acf":{"subheading":"","featured_image_format":"cover","display_featured_image":true,"display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2530\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}