After being cancelled last year, Northwestern State University of Louisiana’s homecoming parade returned in full force for the 2021 homecoming season.

The homecoming parade came as the finishing event of homecoming week before the game itself taking place on Oct. 23.

“It’s always a special week for homecoming, students and family coming out to the game, it’s a big deal,” said Kendrick Price Jr., a senior majoring in health and exercise science, “Especially with COVID being a thing and not having this in the past few years. It’s a really exciting feeling to finally have a normal Saturday.”

The parade itself comprised of 15 organizations, according to the University Programming Council, ranging from the homecoming king and queen to the Demon football team, all following the theme of rock and roll.

But there was another theme in the parade, the theme of normalcy.

“We’re going back to being normal. We’ll hopefully have a nice fun time and it’ll be like as if it was 2019,” said Trevor O’Bannon, a graduate student majoring in student affairs in higher education.

According to the University Programming Council and managers of the parade itself, there were precautions ranging mostly in the form of spacing, but there was no COVID-19 restrictions for the event.

“There is a capacity limit obviously, but since this is an event entirely outside, there are no restrictions or limits, but distance and masks are something we are keeping in mind,” said Blakey Canfield, a senior majoring in biomedical engineering and one of the managers organizing the event.

Homecoming this year takes on a new meaning, not just the celebration of a football home game, but also the celebration of return to some form of normalcy after COVID-19 and the harsh experiences many of us had to face in the last years.