MIDLAND, Texas — Homecoming season is upon us once again and the local high schools are more than excited for it.
One of the biggest traditions for homecoming week is the mum. Students can make them at home for cheap or with supplies they can buy at the store.
But Midland High did it one step further: they built a homecoming mum that stands at ten-feet-tall.
It was completed by the students of the advanced floral class at MHS and it certainly took a lot of hard work.
“The process of making it took about two and a half weeks, and that was with 45 minutes a day," Shawna Braden, who teaches the class, said. "So we go Monday through Friday at school, so with the advanced floral classes they have a 45 minute class period, and it took us about two and a half weeks with those 45-minute class periods."
For a project like this, you can certainly go to the store and buy some supplies.
But you also have to look everywhere for them.
“I would wager that hundred or maybe thousands of feet of these big paper ribbons were used," Midland High senior Neely Smith said. "We had to scavenge in the trash for the cardboard backing to find a box big enough. So I mean, hundred and hundreds of dollars worth, well not hundreds just a lot of stuff.”
But where did they get the idea for this massive project?
Braden said she got the idea last year from her fellow high schools.
"We got the idea from last year, I saw a couple high schools here in Texas that made some large ones," Braden said. "So I figured that this year, actually having my advanced floral design class that this would give them the time to work together and give them the creativeness of showing off our big school spirit.”
Not only did the students get creative, such a project brought all of them together.
“It’s bonding," Midland High senior Macie Drummond. "Nobody has made a big mum in school before, and so for us to just collaborate and talk about ideas and see it all come together was really nice."
But at the end of the day it’s all about school pride, which the students of the class at MHS certainly showcased with their 10-foot-mum.