heinzj@lopers.unk.edu
Oct. 27 brought a night full of entertainment with the annual lip sync battle and royalty coronation. Students, staff and community members crowded the Health and Sports Center for the Homecoming festivities.
Aidan Weidner and Aspen Luebbe were crowned Homecoming king and queen.
“I remember sitting in those stands my freshman year with my roommate,” Weidner said. “He was about the only person I knew when Homecoming rolled around, and just listening to everybody I was like, ‘Man, how is everybody so involved? I would love to be up there at some point,’ but it just didn’t seem possible. With the size of campus, it’s an honor all of the connections I’ve made and then all the people who voted for me.”
The two were both encouraged by their extracurricular groups to run for Homecoming candidacy. Weidner represented the Loper Programming and Activities Council, and Luebbe represented the Alpha Phi sorority.
“I’m very proud to represent UNK the way that I have, and the experience that I have had here at UNK is going to be an unforgettable one,” Luebbe said. “I’m proud to be a Loper.”
Other royalty finalists included Ty Egenn, Joseph Hiatt, Colton Roberts, Brooke Benck, Emma Benck and Lauren Benck.
Before the coronation, the lip sync battle had the crowd cheering. The night featured performances from the dance, cheer and wrestling teams.
Teams battled it out with classic fairytale medleys and costumes to fit the “Far, Far Away” theme. Alpha Omicron Pi, Delta Tau Delta and Lambda Theta Nu won with a performance inspired by “Peter Pan.”
Taking the second place trophy was Gamma Phi Beta, Sigma Tau Gamma and Pi Kappa Alpha. Alpha Phi, Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Lambda Gamma followed in third place and Sigma Phi Epsilon and Alpha Xi Delta took fourth.
Many in the crowd and on the stage cheered for the lip sync competition.
“It was really fun to prepare, and it was really exciting to perform,” said Rachel Ostdiek, a member of Gamma Phi Beta. “It was probably my favorite thing of Homecoming. I got to meet a lot of new people and just have a really fun first Homecoming experience.”
