Kaylee Hamman, an allied health freshman, pomps for the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Fraternities and sororities put hours of work into the house decorations for every Homecoming.
Countless hours of work are put into the house decorations that adorn fraternity house lawns every fall for Homecoming.
What many students might not know is that the process is intricate and complicated.
In the past, greek house pairings would draw the design out and put a screen corresponding the design over the wire. It was like “pomping inside the lines,” said Homecoming executive Meagan Wheeler.
Today, most houses use a more advanced way of planning the designs, Wheeler said.
“What there is now is ‘grid pomping,’” Wheeler said.
Grid pomping involves running the design through a computer program like AutoCAD, which allows for more complicated designs.
“It is basically pomping by number,” Wheeler said. “It can resemble impressionist art sometimes.”
Students use tissue paper and chicken wire to create the designs. The tissue paper is poked through the wire using a finger, which is referred to as macropomping, and a pencil, which is micropomping.
Nanopomping, or using a toothpick to poke the paper through, is banned this year, Wheeler said.
“We felt like it wasted people’s time,” Wheeler said. “From where the judges stand, nanopomping didn’t affect the quality of the decorations.”
Greek houses buy the tissue paper for pomping primarily from Dupree’s Sports Equipment at 316 S. Washington St.
Houses usually buy between 100 boxes of pomp and up to 180 boxes.
Boxes cost $60 each but are discounted to $40 if the houses order T-shirts from Dupree’s.
The most popular colors of paper are black, white and gray. Orange is the next most popular.
Wheeler said the homecoming committee is selected in November.
“Every year, we have to change things to make everything more fair,” Wheeler said. “Something always comes up.”
In February, the house decorations packets are released and greek houses begin to pair up, Wheeler said.
The packets and designs are due in March, and houses can begin work on the actual labor the first week of the fall semester.
“We start that early not only because it takes a lot of time but also because of safety reasons,” Wheeler said. “We want to be able to have as many safety checks as possible so we can ensure that something doesn’t fall down, and people don’t get hurt.”
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