It’s been a rough school year for Eastern. With all the budget cuts, layoffs, enrollment issues and fears of the university shutting down, it’s been a frustrating, sad and scary time for our school.

With that being said I think it’s time for everyone to have a little well-deserved fun this 100th Homecoming Weekend.

I personally am tired of everyone being upset about everything that’s been happening this school year.  If we are going to continue to be this way for the rest of the year, let’s at least put it off if only just for this one weekend.

Homecoming is a time where the whole school is supposed to get together and show how proud we are to be Panthers. So why should we not do exactly that?

On top of that, how lucky are we to be the group of students, faculty, administration and staff to bring in the 100th year? Do we really want to be remembered as the group that lost all faith?

So I say, let’s really go crazy this weekend. Let’s go to Yell Like Hell and cheer on the Greeks as they perform their routines that they’ve put countless hours into. Let’s wake up early, go to the parade and wave to the Homecoming Court as they make their way past us on the parade route.

Let’s dance to the band and make noise for our team as they fight for us at the Football game. And most importantly, let’s bleed blue all weekend.

If you’ve never had school spirit in your life, find some this weekend. We need everyone working together this year to make sure that this centennial is the best celebration that this school has seen in a long time.

This is our school and we need to be as proud of it as possible despite everything that we’ve been going through.

There are a lot of serious things going on right now and there may be more to come in the upcoming years, but we can’t let that keep us down especially on Homecoming Weekend.

At times like these we need to remember a couple of lines from our fight song, “We are loyal EIU, we’re loyal and true. Though the odds be great or small, we’ll still be cheering you.”

So get your blue everything ready, get your friends and colleagues together, and let’s all work together as students, faculty, staff, administration, and alumni to ring in this 100th Homecoming Weekend and make it one for the history books.

Chynna Miller is a senior theatre major.She can be reached at 581-2812 or cdmiller3@eiu.edu.