"Hobo Day is really about celebrating the wandering spirit and the adventurous soul. Students and alumni seek out new adventures while never forgetting where their roots lie and where they've come from through the traditions of Hobo Day."
-Anna Chicoine, Assistant Pooba of Marketing.
If you attend South Dakota State University or are in a state nearby, you may, or I should say hopefully, know of a little celebration the Jackrabbits like to call "Hobo Day." Hobo Day is a tradition celebrated by SDSU students, alumni and anyone who has the spirit to put on their hobo gear. Start collecting your buttons now, so that by the 2016 Hobo Day you can feel like a true bum.
Pictured above are members of the 2015 Hobo Day Committee with the famous "Bummobile." This vintage 1912 Model-T Ford donated to the Hobo Day committee by Frank Weigel led the Hobo Day Parade for the first time in 1936.
Hobo Day features exciting and unique events, games and activities throughout a week in the fall. Events have included things like Bum-A-Meal, an event where SDSU students are able to get a free meal provided by community members who open their homes and kitchen supplies to the hungry and poor bums. Then there is Rally at the Rails, a spirited pump-up event to kickstart the week and, of course, the infamous Hobo Day Parade, an event that attracts not only SDSU students and the Brookings community, but also brings in alumni from all over as well as people from across the state, as the largest one-day event in the Dakotas.
As the 2016 Hobo Day committee is knee deep in planning, their enthusiasm and excitement couldn't be contained. "It's going to stand out from all the other years," said Assistant Pooba of Events Brianna Doran. Echoing her thoughts, Anna Chicoine, Assistant Pooba of Marketing, says that they are "focusing on bringing back some of the traditions. Hobo Day just used to be this huge celebration that was entirely focused on the love that everyone had for SDSU and their school spirit. Living those traditions and doing those things that people from 50 years ago were doing."
So why should you, reading this article, attend Hobo Day this year? Simply put, you won't regret it. "You are not going to regret the stuff that you went to, go to stuff and try new things," said Maddie Mack, former Assistant Pooba of Marketing.
Get involved on campus, try new things, and never be afraid to walk confidently into a room covered from head to toe in buttons with dirt on your face. Your socks may not match, and your mother may never understand what you're wearing, but you're a Hobo, so dive in and be a bum with pride.
It's time to make memories.
