Crowded into the Farris Center arena, many students gathered Oct. 24 for the pep rally kicking off the beginning of homecoming festivities.

Junior Jeromy Hunt is president of Bear Den and was in charge of many homecoming events throughout the week. 

Hunt said he was looking forward to Homecoming Week since last spring and has had meetings biweekly to plan the festivities.

“It’s been a long time,” Hunt said. “I sat down with my executive board and talked about the games or what we’re going to have, who was going to do what and when and how it was going to be done. Then present it to the committee making sure that everything we’re doing aligns with UCA guidelines and making sure everyone is in a welcoming community and just having a good time because everybody knows that the homecoming pep rally is just that.”

Hunt said he couldn’t choose a favorite part of the pep rally. 

“Even though I emceed tonight, it was still a surreal moment,” Hunt said. “When you plan an event and you can sit back and watch it work and everything goes smoothly without a hitch, it just makes you feel good.”

Hunt’s experiences in Bear Den have all led up to this week’s celebrations and he feels that it is only the beginning.

“You always want to grow from where you started,” Hunt said. “We’ve already started planning and getting ready for next year. We plan to go bigger and better.”

Hunt said that this year’s events have already proven to be better in various ways.

“This is one of the first real pep rallies that we’ve had since COVID happened,” Hunt said. “Last year, we had an in-person pep rally, but it really wasn’t inclusive. This year we wanted to get back to that student involvement aspect of it, so this year we did what we could and next year, we will be awesome.”

President Houston Davis began the event with a speech, kicking off the event. He said he loves the planning of each event by the students.

“I love that it’s student conceived, student implemented,” Davis said. “The students get to contribute and then it’s hard to go wrong with it being something that isn’t enjoyable. I think if the staff were just planning things out, it would take on the personalities of the staff.”

Davis said that his favorite part of the pep rally was the minigames that were scattered throughout.

“Everybody likes to be a little kid again, and all the games allow that to come through,” Davis said.

Davis said that the minigames gave a view of the large variety of students that the campus has.

“I think when you do silly things like that, it allows everyone to kind of say ‘hey, we have a really diverse student body,’” Davis said. “They probably saw people out on the floor playing a game and they’d never seen that person before and they’re like ‘that’s a really interesting person. I want to get to know them’ … that’s the good that comes from that.”

Davis said that a lot of spirit came from the cheer team and the band.

“They contribute a lot to our campus spirit,” Davis said. “It’s hard to go wrong without saying that those could be favorites too.”

Davis said that the students that participated in the run for homecoming court are really brave.

“We’ll be crowning the homecoming queen and they’ll be representing the university for the next year,” Davis said. “In that way, this sort of represents this student body for the next year [and it is a] truly great thing to do to put yourself out there.”

Davis said he admired the support for each candidate as they were announced.

“I love that as the names were called, there were people here in this arena that cheered for everybody,” Davis said. “You know, certainly everybody had one that they were here to cheer for, and I loved it in general, but everybody gave good applause who came out. That’s fun, because, in the end, we’re all bears.”

Davis said that the pep rallies at UCA are different solely due to the overall unity students bring.

“I think that students are more open to come to events like this to allow themselves to have fun and to maybe be a part of the bigger community,” Davis said. “I think the community can come together in a really fun way and I love being president during an era where that’s possible with our student body and everyone seems to have fun with it.”