Wednesday, October 2, 2024
With the start of homecoming fast approaching, students at Azle High School are focused on what to wear and bring for the homecoming dance and game. While most students are preparing for homecoming, the king and queen nominees await the game to find out who has been selected for these honors.
While many eyes are focused on the upcoming homecoming king and queen, homecoming coronations of the past are sometimes forgotten, along with their story. Pam Madlock — the former Pam Robinson — the 1981 homecoming queen at Azle High School, discussed her experience with homecoming as a student at Azle and as a homecoming queen.
“We used to make the floats and you had to meet for several nights and everybody worked on the floats,” Madlock said. “We would make the flowers for the floats and use wire. It was very labor intensive.”
Madlock points out the many changes that have taken place since she was in school in regard to homecoming.
“When we were in school, our mums had actual flowers, and afterward you would put them in something and let them dry and keep them,” Madlock said. “It also seemed like we used to do (homecoming) later in the fall but it seems earlier now.”
When asked how students would cast votes and when the results were announced, Madlock expressed that she did not fully remember the process.
“I’m pretty sure (the voting system) was just a ballot with representatives from each class,” Madlock said. “I’m sure (the results) were announced, maybe at the pep rally or something like that.”
Madlock mentioned that one of the major life skills she got from high school in relation to homecoming was talking to different kinds of people.
“I was in band, so I knew a lot of the band people and I was in athletics, so I knew a lot of athletics people, so I think that added to my knowing of a lot of people, so I wasn’t in a clique,” Madlock said. “This gave me a better feel for different people because people in band, a lot of the times, were not like the people in athletics and these people in athletics didn’t understand why people in band were how they were.”
Madlock now works in the health care industry as a nurse anesthetist to provide relief when needed.
