2026 Annual Homecoming Parade Highlights Students’ Creativity

The homecoming parade has been a tradition since 1963. Over the years, things have changed; however, one thing always stays the same. It has always been a place for students to showcase their creativity. With more than ten floats, you see lots of different ideas, and people come together.

By: Andrea Oyervidez

About 20 clubs were a part of this year’s homecoming parade, showcasing their creative minds and hard work.

One of the many clubs participating, the orchestra club, shares their theme for their float. The club representative, Sierra Carlson ’26, says, “It was based on the Avengers theme, and somebody had the idea to make the stones as people and the Infinity Gauntlet as the golf cart.”

Other clubs like Mock Trial decided to stick with the homecoming theme, while also incorporating their club as well. Mock Trial president, Janna Asunto, 26, says, “We want to keep the mock trial theme with, like, all the lawyers and courtroom. We want to keep the theme, also incorporating this year’s homecoming theme, Marvel, in it.”

 Hailey Davidson, 26’, mock trial member says, “We want to go to state again this year, and the award we get for state is a gavel, so we want to represent that in our designs. We also want to keep it blue for Redwood and show we have the best Mock Trial team.“

Link Crew, like orchestra club and mock trial, also decided to include their club and the homecoming theme. Zoe Schugardt, Link Crew President, said, “We really like the comic book look, like the original Marvel, so with the comic books we like the little speech bubbles so we can put encouraging or just Redwood things on there. We have a lot of encouragement like, Go Big Blue, Go Ranger, and Freshmen Pride, just things like that.”

Dance Force, however, decided to go all in with this year’s homecoming game theme. Michela Pasqiuni, 26′, the Dance Force captain, said, “We just wanted to stick to the basic colors of red and blue, mostly to keep the Spider-Man theme going.”

Most clubs spend lots of time not just working on the float, but also collaborating with their people and talking about their ideas. ASB member Alondra Rodriguez, 26, says, “Behind the scenes, we’ve been making a lot of posters and doing homecoming workdays to make it possible.”

Valerie Ortiz, 26′, Link Crew vice president, says, “A lot of work went into it, including class time. We had a couple of workdays where we all worked together to make printouts so people can just color them.”

Dance force captain Michela Pasqiuni said, “I feel like a lot of collaboration between our team and allowing people to express their ideas and then just kind of collaborating on what we liked from each person’s idea.”

The ASB float captures the spirit of their club through showing their talent and creativity. Alondra Rodriguez 26′ says, “It’s going to represent our club’s creativity and show how we work together to make posters and just show how, like, together we are as a family.”

Through their float, orchestra showcases their community and dedication. Sierra Carlson, 26, says, “It shows our community and it basically just shows how close we are. Because even though we’re three classes and we have hundreds of students in orchestra, it shows that we’re all willing to work together and create a project like this.”

Keeping up with tradition may be hard; however, these clubs strive to keep tradition going. Mock trial president, Asunto 26′ says, “Mock trial has always participated in the homecoming parade in the past years.”

She goes on to say, “We actually have a poster that we use every year. It’s honestly been here since before my senior year, and I remember walking in the parade with the poster. So we wanted to participate again this year to keep that tradition going and keep that mock trial legacy going and also show off our school pride.”

Like mock trial, this isn’t the orchestra’s first rodeo. Carlson, 26, says, “We’ve done this in previous years, and our ideas have kind of built on each other over the years. So, like our posters, we’ve had multiple years and stuff.”

Turning Link Crew’s ideas into a visual display, the float highlights all their hard work and dedication to putting it all together. Link Crew vice president Valerie Ortiz, 26, says, “I hope they notice all the work that we put into it and how much we actually care about making sure that everyone feels a part of Link Crew and of our school in general.”

More than just a parade decoration, the float represents the orchestra’s imaginative thinking and commitment. Sierra Carlson says, “Hopefully the infinity gauntlet because we worked so hard on it, but also just the people. The people that were there to help and are willing to go through the parade and take their time to do that, which is amazing.”

Tags: 2026, homecoming 2026, homecoming parade, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood rangers, visalia ca