A few changes were made this year at Casa Grande related to homecoming. For the first time in Casa Grande history, anyone, of any gender, can be crowned Homecoming Royalty. 

The well known title of ‘Queen and King’ has been changed this year to ‘Royalty’ to be more inclusive towards everyone, of any gender. These changes were decided on by ASB Presidents Josie Woldemar and Carissa Stoudt with the support of ASB Director Meghan Haflich.

“We were just talking through how [homecoming] usually went. And in order to… create a more inclusive opportunity for homecoming, we wanted to take away the gender restrictions” said Haflich.

Casa will also be awarding multiple crowns this year; there will not be just one set of royalty.

“[We] just want[ed] to highlight different people on campus so it’s not just one person, because you can never show the whole campus’ amazingness in one person… so we want to try to have more variety and more diversity in terms of representation for homecoming” said Haflich.

Instead of the typical voting system, this year, seniors must meet the four graduate profile values to become royalty. The four Pillars of Success include being broadly literate, civically engaged, highly employable, and having a personal vision.

“The four graduate profiles… are things that are school wide… [and] are embedded into the senior project” Haflich said. “The senior project is the culminating activity that every senior at Casa creates to demonstrate that they are what it means to be a Gaucho,” described Haflich.

Casa Grande wants to work towards being more inclusive, and this is one step closer to meeting their goal.