Carroll University Homecoming Parade Converges With Waukesha Unlocked October 10; Class Of 1976 Celebrates Golden Pioneer Reunion

WAUKESHA — Carroll University's homecoming week, running October 8-11, will reach its loudest point at noon Saturday when the homecoming parade steps off from campus the same weekend the city runs Waukesha Unlocked, its 50-plus-building open house marking Waukesha's 130th anniversary. University officials say they did not choose the overlap so much as discover it, in August, during a shared-calendar review that one administrator described as "a little late to be useful, but not too late to be alarming."

Combined attendance for the weekend is now projected at more than 4,000 people, a figure Carroll's events office revised upward twice after Waukesha Unlocked organizers confirmed shuttle buses would be running on overlapping streets at the overlapping hour. "We're not saying it's a disaster," said Carroll homecoming committee chair Renata Alvarez, who is also the lead event coordinator for Waukesha Unlocked and who has therefore spent the last two weeks in meetings with herself. "We're saying it's a lot of golf carts for one noon."

The Golden Pioneers

At the center of the weekend is the Class of 1976, marking its 50th reunion with a Golden Pioneer pinning ceremony Friday evening in the Shaw Fine Arts Center lobby. Organizers confirmed 183 RSVPs as of Tuesday, with name tags printed in a font two sizes larger than the Class of 2001's, a concession the alumni office made "for readability, not symbolism," according to reunion coordinator Pam Oleksy.

Saturday morning brings a breakfast for the 1976-77 championship football team, who will eat alongside current Pioneers coaches and players in the Van Male Fieldhouse starting at 8 a.m., ninety minutes before the parade's call time. Three members of the 1976-77 roster are expected to ride in the parade itself, seated in the back of a maroon 1987 Buick Electra borrowed from a booster's garage specifically for the occasion and driven, per the route sheet, "no faster than a brisk alumni walking pace."

"We're not saying it's a disaster. We're saying it's a lot of golf carts for one noon."

— Renata Alvarez, Carroll homecoming committee chair and Waukesha Unlocked event coordinator

One Noon, Two Crowds

City Engineer Todd Rasmussen, who spent September routing Waukesha Unlocked's continuous shuttle loop around downtown's block-by-block one-way flips, confirmed the parade route and the shuttle's East Avenue leg will cross at one signalized intersection for an estimated 11 minutes starting at 12:04 p.m. "We looked at rerouting the shuttle around the East Avenue roundabout instead," Rasmussen said, "but every test driver we sent through it missed the exit, so we decided one scheduled 11-minute crossing was the safer bet than an unscheduled 40-minute one."

Bob Krueger, the retired DPW supervisor who reviews area traffic control in a personal capacity, walked the proposed parade barricade line Tuesday afternoon and rated it 7 out of 10, citing "generally sound cone discipline" but flagging a gap near the Carroll Health Science Center where he said a determined pedestrian "could, in theory, wander straight into a marching band, and nothing printed on this route sheet would stop them."

Downtown businesses along the shared stretch have been notified to expect reduced parking through Saturday evening. At least four storefronts, including a candlemaking studio already committed to a separate Waukesha Unlocked tour slot, have posted adjusted Saturday hours, opening two hours later than usual "to let both crowds get where they're going first."

The Parade Order

The parade itself will run 38 entries, led by the Pioneers marching band, followed by the Class of 1976 Buick, the current homecoming court, and a flatbed trailer carrying the fieldhouse's retired 1976-77 championship banner, which university staff confirmed had to be re-hemmed this month after 49 years in storage left it four inches shorter than the trailer railing it's meant to drape over.

University President's office staff said the parade will conclude by 1 p.m., leaving a one-hour buffer before Waukesha Unlocked's early-afternoon shuttle surge, a buffer Alvarez described as "theoretical, but we wrote it down, so it counts for something." Asked whether Carroll would consider moving next year's homecoming off the city's anniversary weekend, Alvarez said the university has not discussed it, "mostly because nobody wants to be the one who checks next October's calendar first."