Once a Bison, Always a Bison

Bisons Weekend 2025 will build on Lipscomb’s 77-year-old Homecoming tradition, with activities to boost joy and fellowship both new and old.

The college experience at any university makes a definitive mark on a young person’s life, a mark that they often reflect on and would sometimes like to rekindle.

Luckily, unlike many life experiences, alumni actually can re-connect with their college days. That opportunity at Lipscomb has gone by many names—Homecoming, Herdcoming, Alumni Weekend, but today it goes by the name Bisons Weekend.

The annual gathering of the Bison Herd—including students, alumni and parents—has been growing by leaps and bounds in the past few years, with both treasured traditions and new opportunities offered for Lipscomb’s alumni each November.

This fall’s event, to be held Nov. 13-15, offers more of the same for those who were once a Bison and still are a Bison.
 

From parades to pep rallies, from musicals to basketball, from alumni reunions to Pancakes with the President for parents, Bisons Weekend, first established as Homecoming in 1948, has a long history of bringing together alumni to revive good memories of the past, fellowship through sharing the present and dream about the future.

Since re-branding the event as Bisons Weekend and cementing its date in November, the weekend of activities has steadily grown in popularity over the past few years, with a 20% jump in attendance in 2023 and a 37% jump in 2024, bringing more than 2,000 people to the event.

Student involvement was pumped up with the revival of the student parade in 2018, when students decorated truck beds and drove around campus and the Allen Arena Mall.

Parent involvement was increased by combining Homecoming and the annual Family Weekend in 2019 to create the current format for Bisons Weekend, where parents enjoy a wealth of student performances and exhibits, as well as get an update from Lipscomb President Candice McQueen (BS ’96).

The Bison Square Fair has become the go-to activity for Bisons Weekend. The fair features booths hosted by various university departments and services, student organizations and social clubs, allowing alumni to visit with those who have ties to their own experience. 

Attendees flock to the Bison Button Bar which offers various buttons from social clubs both existing and retired, and all the booths offer attendees buttons, stickers, snacks and other memorabilia. Last year the Women in Animation Club offered caricatures of guests, and student entrepreneurs offered their wares for purchase. All while student musicians from the new pep band to contemporary ensembles provide music for the occasion. 

This year’s Bison Square Fair promises to be an even more popular event as it will be a family-friendly experience with a petting zoo, inflatables and carnival games for the youngsters.

Throughout its three days, Bisons Weekend carries on many of the traditions that have been part of the Lipscomb event over eight decades:
 

• A pep rally in Bison Square will introduce new men’s basketball coach Kevin Carroll, and the men’s home basketball game, Carroll’s first, will be against Bryan College;
• Bisons Weekend Chapel in Willard Collins Alumni Auditorium will feature a special guest speaker, an update by President McQueen, a performance by a student vocal group and the awarding of the Alumni and Young Alumni of the Year;
• The Savannah’s Boogie 5K Run has become an important annual event for Lipscomb’s IDEAL program;
• The 2025 Bisons Weekend annual theater production will be Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical directed by theater chair Beki Baker;
• Prestigious guest lecturers will share their Christian journeys; and
• Of course, there will be reunions – the 50th reunion for the Class of 1975, including a coffee, a reception, dinner and program; the Golden Circle reunion for those who graduated before 1975; a special reunion for those who lived in the married housing homes that stretched to Shackleford Road; and reunions for business and pharmacy graduates are in the works.

Whether you are a part of the alumni, a student, a parent or grandparent of a student, or a friend of Lipscomb, Bisons Weekend 2025 offers a way to rekindle your college memories, learn more about your student’s college experience today and build friendships and relationships for the future.
 

Bisons Weekend has a long and varied history of exciting events and nostalgic gatherings of the Bison Herd.
 

Established with a humble crowning ceremony during the basketball game in 1948, Bisons Weekend (called Homecoming until 2009) has grown over more than seven decades to include at various times: student parades, theater productions, pep rallies, concerts, a plethora of reunions, and much more.

Read on to reminisce about some of the milestones in Bisons Weekend’s history that you may personally remember, and be sure to register for 2025’s event beginning Sept. 22. 

Crowning the Queen
 

“Setting a precedent for coming basketball seasons, beautiful Gloria Wheeler reigned as Homecoming Queen at the Lipscomb-Austin Peay game February 23,” states the 1948 Backlog, Lipscomb’s yearbook. 

And set a precedent it did, with Lipscomb students selecting 63 Homecoming queens over the years. Among Lipscomb’s queens over the years were Tennessee’s former Speaker of the House Beth Halteman Harwell (BA ’78) in 1978, on-air television personality Kacy Hagerty Callaghan (BA ’08) in 2007 and current Lipscomb staff Beth Earnest Morrow (BA ’98, MBA ’12) and faculty Melanie Hodge Morris (LA ’89, BS ’93) reigned over the Homecoming court in years past.
 

Creativity fit for a royal court

The sets for the Homecoming court entered a golden age of artistic creativity as John Hutcheson (LA ’47, BA ’50), longtime chair of the art department until his death in 1986 and namesake of Lipscomb’s on-campus art gallery, brought a new level of innovative creativity to the temporary sets.

According to his widow Mary Nelle Hutcheson Chumley (LA ’49, A ’53), Hutcheson had only $200 for his first set budget, but he created a backdrop grand enough that the basketball coach didn’t believe it could be torn down in time for the basketball game. It was removed within three minutes, said Chumley.

After a few years, Homecoming attendees looked forward to the seemingly elaborate sets each year, showing up half an hour early to make sure they got a seat in the gym. Hutcheson was a master of using low-cost items to create luxurious-looking décor, such as using communion cups and Styrofoam to create a chandelier that twinkled in the gym lights.

One year he created a mansion with a wrought-iron gate that was all painted by Hutcheson and his students but looked three-dimensional, said Chumley. She was in the crowd that year operating a spotlight and got a good laugh out of listening to two attendees discuss at length how they were going to get the iron fence off the court.

“They were blown away when the students just picked up the whole thing and walked off with it,” she said.

After Homecoming each year, Hutcheson would tell his wife at the breakfast table: “Now honey, I’ve got this idea for next year!”

Alumni reunited

If there is one throughline in the reunions held on Homecoming and Bisons Weekend through the years, it’s coffee. Whether it is poured from a silver set or a K-cup®, it's the “coffees” that bring alumni together to reminisce and meet new friends. 

Over the years, reunions have been held for a wealth of different demographics—divided up by college, academic program, social club and student interest club among other designations, and have recognized various historic milestones, such as the first graduating class after Lipscomb became a four-year college, 100 years since the university moved to its current location on David Lipscomb’s farm or the last Homecoming to be held in McQuiddy Gymnasium.

In the dining hall in what is now Bennett Campus Center, class year signs were placed on the various tables so that alumni could find their graduation year and eat with fellow alumni, said Mary Emily Bouldin (LA ’70, BS ’74), archives specialist in Beaman Library. “It was always packed,” she said.

A “Met My Mate” reunion was held in 2004 and featured former Lipscomb President Willard Collins (AD ’36) and his wife, Ruth (LA ’35, AD ’35), sharing their story; a Baby Bisons reunion was held in 2005; a reunion for the Bisonettes, a marching corp that performed at basketball games, in 2006; and a coffee for Homecoming Queens in 2009.  

Today, Bisons Weekend always includes a 50th reunion for the relevant graduating class and the Golden Circle reunion for alumni who graduated more than 50 years ago, as well as other gatherings of particular groups. 

Students on parade

Student organizations have almost always played a role in making the event a festive one. Over time, student organizations’ exhibits evolved from banners hung in the gym in the 1950s to free-standing sculptures that stood around the center of campus in the 1960s and 1970s. These exhibits, featuring everything from Snoopy to Viking ships, were no easy thing to build.

“Evenings spent in the bitter cold, days spent nursing wire-torn fingers, tests thoroughly unstudied — these are the basic ingredients, at least from the student's point of view, of a successful homecoming,” says the copy in the 1972 Backlog. “From shapeless masses of chicken wire and cardboard come shapes massively resembling everything from ships to roller skates…”

Janet Slayden (A ’72), of Franklin, part of the Class of 1974, remembers building these “floats” in a neighbor’s driveway and having to navigate them along the streets of Nashville, cutting tree limbs one year to clear passage, to get them to campus for display.

In the 2000s, Lipscomb President Steve Flatt (BA ’77) and later President L. Randolph Lowry were dressed in a crown and royal robe to serve as king of the student walking parade held in that decade. In the 2010s, “floats” for a rejuvenated student parade were decorated truck beds and trailers and a chili cook-off followed.

Today’s student parade floats are golf carts, which this year, will be decorated as the rivals in the Bisons’ 2025-26 basketball schedules.

Get in the Game

There is no better time than Bisons Weekend to show school spirit by cheering on Lipscomb’s athletic teams. In its history, the event has included not only men’s basketball games, but also women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball competitions.And in some years in the 2000s, the event included Battle of the Boulevard, the Bisons’ annual chance to play its chief rival, Belmont University, located just down the road, in basketball. In 2006, students camped out in tents the night before Homecoming weekend began and held the Running of the Bison, a raucous foot parade of the neighborhood established in 2005.

In 1987, students held the first of a few throwback events modeled after Bison Day, an elaborate pep rally held earlier in the 1980s to celebrate the first home basketball game each fall quarter. The 1987 Homecoming version was called Bisonfest and featured live bands, a pep rally, cheers by the various social clubs and free food serving as “a celebration of school spirit,” according to The Lipscomb News.

The year 1988 included Bison Bash, and in 2017, Bison Day was revived again with social clubs performing skits and cheers for the crowd in Bison Square.

In 1996, a McQuiddy Madness exhibition game of Bison alumni vs. selected current Bison players was held in McQuiddy Gym. In 1998, the festivities included a three-on-three basketball game with students playing an alumni team including Flatt and Philip Hutcheson (LA ’86, BA ’90), then-president of the Alumni Association and now Lipscomb’s director of athletics.

Running of the Bison

The spectacle that is Running of the Bison began in 2005, starting as a group of rowdy students running along the neighborhood streets surrounding campus before the annual Battle of the Boulevard against Belmont University.

In the coldest time of year, hundreds of students gathered in the late evening in their Lipscomb gear, toting thunder sticks, fog horns, pom pons and drums to run around the block cheering and whooping to raise spirits before the biggest game of the year. Not rain or snow or 30-degree temperatures could stop the moving pep rally. Some students wore costumes and body paint and supplemented the run with break dancing and other joyful activities.

Shortly after its creation, students began to hold the run during Homecoming, especially when it coincided with the Battle of the Boulevard. In 2006, when the run was part of the Homecoming activities, the students camped out the night before their trip in the cold from Caldwell to Lealand lanes and back up Maplehurst to campus.

In the 2010s, the Running of the Bison route switched to Belmont Boulevard, where students would charge toward their chief rival Belmont on the boulevard and back again to Allen Arena just in time for the Battle game.

In 2022 Running of the Bison was incorporated into QuestWeek, the university’s orientation week to welcome new students. Newcomers meet Lipscomb’s student-athletes at a pre-run cookout. Then as Quest Team members lead the new students on the streets surrounding the soccer field, the athletes and Lipscomb staff line a campus sidewalk to cheer on the runners as they burst through Lipscomb’s Shackleford Road entry arch with a Lipscomb flag leading the way.
 

The play’s the thing

A Homecoming musical was added in 1979, with Oklahoma, directed by Lipscomb Legend Henry “Buddy” Arnold (BA ’48), selected as the first production. Productions over the years have included The Sound of Music, The Music Man, 1776, Shenandoah and Hello Dolly.

Arnold would often revive Homecoming shows from the past, including in 1988 when he staged The Barretts of Wimpole Street, a production of Lipscomb’s first senior class that he had starred in with his then wife-to-be Bernie Wyckoff Arnold (BA ’48) in 1948. 

The tradition was revived in 2016 with Beauty and the Beast, and the 2025 Bisons Weekend production will be Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical.

A musical journey into the past

Music has also always been a special part of the event. Over the years, it has been common for the student choral ensembles to embrace returning alumni to hold a concert together, sometimes combining all of Lipscomb’s vocal student ensembles.

In 2003, a special concert combining alumni from various student vocal groups over the years—Windsong, Alliance, Harmony, Impression, Twentyfourseven, X-Changed, The Kensman and The Insiders—was held.

In 1999, Delta Sigma and Delta Nu social clubs began holding their annual concert, Delta NaNaNa on and off for the next few years during Homecoming, with alumni artists sometimes joining the students. Later in 2013, Tau Phi began sometimes holding its annual Tau Phi Cowboy Show, where students (and sometimes alums) perform Country hits.

For a few years starting in the 1990s, the university began hosting concerts by well-known musical artists including Jo Dee Messina, Sarah Evans, Lonestar and Diamond Rio, with alumni lead singer Marty Roe (BS ’84), in 2005.

Today, attendees can see concerts by today’s student vocal and instrumental ensembles, including Sanctuary and the Gospel Choir, as well as students performing contemporary music at various events throughout the weekend.

Alumni of Excellence

Bisons Weekend has always been a time to honor those alumni who “epitomize the potential of a Lipscomb education,” with “strong faith” and a “servant-like heart.” But the way such alumni have been honored, has changed many times over the decades, including “Distinguished Alumni,” the “Avalon Awards” and “Lipscomb Honors” presented at a dinner at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In the 1970s, families with multi-generational relationships with Lipscomb were honored at Homecoming and later in the 1980s “Representatives of the Decades” were designated for special recognition at the event.  

In 1980, the university began to award the ’Fessor Boyce Award, named for professor Eugene ’Fessor Boyce (A ’34). Its first recipient was Boyce himself, who had been a teacher and coach at Lipscomb since 1937, and the award was given out for at least 15 years.

An Alumnus of the Year Award was also established in 1980 (Ira North [A ’41], editor of the Gospel Advocate, was the first recipient), but was not presented to the winner at Homecoming until some time later.

For so many of our Lipscomb Bisons, their college days were days to remember, and there is no better way to do that than by attending Bisons Weekend, Nov. 13-15.  registration opens on Sept. 22.