For the past few days, hundreds of students have been fluffing pieces of colored tissue paper and attaching them to chicken wire to create more than 50 floats that will fill this year's Homecoming parade.
The parade will kick off Penn State's Homecoming celebration at 6 p.m. tomorrow.
"Every day, we have a new part [of the float] that we have to get done," said Rachel Lawrence, a pledge for Alpha Omicron Pi sorority.
Fraternity and sorority pledges are typically responsible for "pomping," or attaching the pieces of tissue paper, to create themes like the sorority's this year: "Penn State-opoly."
"It's going to look a lot better than what I've seen in the past," said Lawrence, who has experience with pomping from high school. "It's a lot more organized."
Delta Gamma sorority, working with Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, 417 E. Prospect Ave., has been working on a "The Lion King" theme and will feature main characters from the movie such as Simba and Pumbaa.
For these students, building the floats has been a positive experience despite the amount of work it requires to create one.
"It's really nice getting to know the fraternity brothers and getting involved in homecoming," said Amanda Elser, Delta Gamma sorority pledge.
Elser said her sorority ran out of tissue paper Monday night, but managed to get more by Tuesday.
Though most of the floats are being built by greek organizations, other student groups are also participating in the event.
This year's homecoming theme is "Reflecting the Spirit," and the logo is Joe Paterno's glasses with '07 reflected in a lens.
The parade will follow a route along Bigler Road, down College Avenue, up South Burrowes Street and will end in front of Rec Hall. The parade is expected to last about two hours, and there will be a pep rally at Old Main afterward. These streets will be closed from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday.
It may be hard to find a place to watch, said Autumne Shannon, public relations overall.
A panel of four judges will select the winning floats. The panel consists of sociology lecturers Sam Richards and his wife Laurie Mulvey, as well as Judy Albin, senior associate director for unions and student activities, and Dirk Mateer, lecturer and co-director of undergraduate studies in economics.
