Last week, the Waynesburg University Student Activities Board [SAB] announced the 10 seniors — five male and five female — that will make up the 2018 Homecoming Court.

The court will walk together at John F. Wiley Stadium during halftime of the Homecoming football game Saturday, Oct. 6.

The students on the court include Tyler Godwin, Josh Sneeringer, Brian Drake, Avery White, Tyler Turbett, Mattie Winowitch, Jordyn Wyllie, Michelle Keith, Kristina Fisher and Mary Beth Cocchi. The male and female couples will be walking together in a ceremony that will culminate with the crowing of this year’s king and queen.

Drake, a criminal justice major, and Cocchi, a nursing major will both be walking together Saturday, and both of them are graduates of Mt. Lebanon High School. Although they knew of each other at Mt. Lebanon, they didn’t become close until they began their respective journeys at Waynesburg.

Cocchi said when the two found out they’d be walking with each other, they were thrilled.

“It was really awesome,” Cocchi said. “It was really cool going from high school where we weren’t friends to now.”

Godwin is the only person on the court who will be alongside his girlfriend, as he and Winowitch are walking together. Regardless of how the final voting turns out, Godwin feels that walking together will be something that the two can look back on in the future.

“It’s something that she and I talked about whenever the voting was happening,” he said. “Even if we don’t end up winning king and queen, that would be something we’d have the rest of our lives to talk about. Like, ‘Hey, we dated in college and we actually got this opportunity to walk together at Homecoming as Homecoming Court members.’”

Godwin decided to pursue Homecoming Court because it was something that he didn’t get to experience when he was a student at South Fayette High School. After developing a solid reputation at Waynesburg, running for the court was something he said he felt comfortable doing.

“I got to know a lot of people here,” Godwin said. “I’ve made countless friends over the years. I’ve built a lot of good relationships around the area, and I just thought [Homecoming Court] would be something that would be pretty cool to try and do.”

In her time at Waynesburg, Wylie, an education major, has taken up several extra-curricular activities, such as volleyball, Criminal Justice club and Newman club. With everything she’s experienced in college, Wylie saw Homecoming Court as an opportunity to add to the list.

“I guess the reason that I decided to be a part of Homecoming Court or at least try for it was just that I wanted to experience everything that Waynesburg has to offer,” Wylie said. “I’ve made a lot of good friends here, so I was hoping that I’d be on the court with a lot of my friends, which came true.”

White, a business management major, is one of Wylie’s friends on the court and is the person she will be walking with.

“He makes me laugh a lot, which is awesome,” Wylie said. “I can’t wait to see how this goes. He’s just really cool, and I’m just excited to experience this with him and just have a memory to add to the books.”

White said his motivation to run for the court was “simple.”

“My friends were going to do it, and they were like, ‘Hey, you should do this with me,’” White said. “And I [said] alright, senior year, might as well, why not? So there wasn’t really much thought to it. It was just kind of something that we all did for fun.”

Like Wylie, Keith is blessed simply to be one of the five women on the court.

“I would say it’s a really big honor and I’m really thankful for everybody who voted for me,” Keith said. “There were so many amazing people who applied for court and it’s a really big honor. So I’m excited to get to know the people on the court and experience the weekend and the festivities.”

This will be the last Homecoming that the senior class will experience at Waynesburg University as a part of the student body. Both Godwin and White see the day as a way for the court, along with the rest of Waynesburg’s students and alumni, to come together. For White, the biggest thing to focus on for Saturday is “just having fun.”

“I think that’s really what senior year is about is enjoying the moment and being intentional with people and not moving on too fast,” White said. “This is the last time we’re going to be surrounded by this many friends at this capacity.”

Godwin said that this year’s court is a collection of people with different stories coming together for one day to enjoy with each other before graduation.

“We all come from pretty different backgrounds here on campus,” Godwin said. “I’m a baseball player, I’m involved in the [Department of Communication]. Brian [Drake] is a tennis player and is involved in just so many different campus activities. Everyone is a different major. Everyone kind of had a different track to getting here. So it’s kind of cool that we’re all going to be kind of doing this together in our final year at Waynesburg.”