NMSU students and a sizable amount of the community of Las Cruces were up early on Saturday morning as the University played host to their annual homecoming parade on University Avenue. 

The parade, a long-standing tradition of the Univerity, is organized by NMSU’s student government – ASNMSU.

“We’ve been preparing for this parade for three months now,” said Donovan Olvera, the Director of Activities with ASNMSU. Olvera was in charge in large part towards putting together the event and also making sure to line up the over 35 different floats that were in the parade.

Olvera also said the parade is always a great outreach event.  “[The parade] is a really good opportunity to engage with the community, with alumni and with current students.”

All floats were required to be ready and at NMSU Parking Lot #30 at 7 a.m. Saturday morning to check in and line up for the parade – which started at 10 a.m. The route took the parade down University Avenue starting at the Pan American Center and ending in the parking lot of Gerald Thomas Hall.

“ASNMSU is the sole partnership within the alumni to really help make this parade happen and bring it to fruition,” said Kevin Prieto, the President of ASNMSU. “Our Director of Activities, Donovan Olvera, has really really put in all the hard work. He’s been working for months for this, getting everyone together, getting the organizations [to join the parade].”

Entries for the float contest were open to all student organizations as well as community members and businesses.
“This year we wanted to do something a little different and reach out to the community and make sure everyone is engaged, so it’s not only the ASNMSU and New Mexico State fraternities and sororities but a bunch of different local companies and businesses,” Prieto said.

Crowds of people showed up to support the student organizations and local businesses that participated in the parade and to show their pride for the Aggies.

“We have one of the biggest turn-outs this year,” said Prieto.  

Many organizations and much of Greek life spent a considerable amount of time preparing their floats for the parade. 

“It was really fun,” said Gavin Petner, a freshmen and member of Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) who participated in the parade on his fraternities float. Petner said that he and his fraternity put in about 25 hours over the past week trying to make their routine [which included dancing] and float perfect for the Saturday parade. “It was a lot of hard work going into it, but then as we did it was really fun.”

The Homecoming parade was a precursor for the Homecoming football game later on Saturday night inside Aggie Memorial Stadium when the Aggies take on Arkansas State. 

To view the photo gallery from the parade, click here.