Bearden is adding a king to its court.

In past years, Bearden students have only selected candidates for homecoming queen in the fall, but now there is an opportunity for males to participate also. 

Principal Mrs. Debbie Sayers was an influential part in the decision to add a homecoming king. She also took into consideration other principals’ and teachers’ opinions on the matter. 

“I just went, and I asked the other principals, especially the ones that have been at Bearden for a while,” Mrs. Sayers said. “I talked to [football] Coach [Morgan] Shinlever, some of the secretaries, and I asked a good number of other people, and it seemed like adding a king to the fall wasn’t really going to change anything.

“It wasn’t going to take [an] opportunity away from anybody. It was just going to add something, and I thought, ‘Why not do it?’”

The student body will now elect both a king and a queen, but the process will work the exact same. Each candidate will be escorted by a family member, and each will be in their own convertible when driven around the field. The male and female candidates will not be escorting each other. 

“Homecoming will not be very much different,” said Ms. Angelia Ford, the coordinator for the Interclub Council. “We will still have family members do the escorting, so guys and girls will not escort each other.

“If a guy runs, he will have an escort just like the girls would have from their family.”

Bearden has had homecoming kings in the past, but they have only been a part of basketball homecoming in the winter rather than football in the fall. Recently, however, Bearden has not had a basketball homecoming because of school cancellations due to weather and sickness.

“We have historically had a basketball homecoming, and I think four or five years in a row it has gotten snowed out, so the guys just didn’t get represented,” Ms. Ford said.

Any club was allowed to nominate one female upperclassman candidate, one female underclassman candidate, and one male candidate from any grade. Having candidates representing every grade is important to the Interclub Council so that every student can feel included, and adding a king will help achieve this goal even further.

The homecoming procession will be on Friday during halftime at the Bearden vs. Bradley Central football game, and SGA will host the annual Homecoming Dance after the game. The theme for the game and the dance is decades.