WAI'ANAE — The first homecoming parade at Wai'anae High School in more than a quarter of a century featured floats, brass band music, bouncing cheerleaders and the excitement of a community that couldn't quite recall why anything so wonderful had ever come to an end.

The parade kicked off the two-day Wai'anae High School homecoming festivities, which marked the end of a yearlong celebration commemorating the 50th anniversary of Wai'anae High.

The homecoming theme: "Celebrating 50 Years of Pride and Tradition."

Ironically, one proud tradition that had died at the school was the annual homecoming parade itself.

"This is something that should have been brought back a long time ago," said 1980 Wai'anae High graduate Jo Jordan. "That parade was something that everybody in the community looked forward to for homecoming week. It was just really cool."

The last time such a parade wound its way through the streets of Wai'anae was before any of the current crop of high school students had been born. When was that last homecoming parade? That depends on who you talk to. Some say it was 1976. Others insist it was '77, '79, or even '81.

IT'S BEEN A WHILE

Charla Low Wong said she knew that a homecoming parade had been scheduled for 1986. Since she was the homecoming queen that year, there's little chance she could be mistaken. However, she said that parade was canceled an hour before it was set to begin.

"We got rained out!" Wong said. "I was major bummed."

Wong — who finally got her chance to wave at the cheering crowd yesterday from the back of a new convertible — said she didn't think there was ever a scheduled homecoming parade after that.

"The last on-the-road kind of parade was in 1979," said Jackie Spencer, a driving force behind yesterday's parade extravaganza. "What they did was they went back and looked through the annuals and the last Farrington Highway parade we could verify was in '79."

Yesterday's parade was an abbreviated version of the longer parades from years ago — starting at Poka'i Bay, moving up Wai'anae Valley Road and onto Farrington Highway, where the whole procession continued all the way to the high school. Spectators, including tutus, parents and little kids, were lined up along most of the route.

EVENT WENT SMOOTHLY

Although the march caused some minor bottlenecks, traffic was diverted along the parade route and for the most part, everything went according to plan.

"When I was in school and I was in the parade court, we started in what's (now) the Wai'anae Mall area," said Verna Landford-Bright, who graduated in 1969. "Of course, we were mostly waving at kiawe trees back then. But it was the pride and spirit that was important because each class built a float. So it mattered how far we traveled, because of all the work we put into making the floats."

Some folks say that the parade tradition ended because the march along Farrington Highway created a traffic snarl of momentous proportions along a road that, in those days, was only two lanes.

But Landford-Bright, who heads up the Wai'anae High School Alumni and Community Foundation that co-organized and sponsored the homecoming event along with the Wai'anae Coast Rotary Club, said there's more to it than that.

Once, teachers and students had the time to organize a parade, she said. But as time passed, the process required more energy, resources and money. Liability insurance and parade permits only compounded the problem. Eventfully, the whole thing fell by the wayside.

Anita Korenaga, who led yesterday's parade from the back seat of a hot-rod convertible, has seen virtually every homecoming celebration the school has ever had — with or without a parade. That's because the Wai'anae resident and former teacher was there the day the school bell first rang in September 1957.

Korenaga said part of the confusion is because the school had a few small, on-campus homecoming parades after the big Farrington Highway celebrations had become a fading memory.

RENEWAL OF TRADITION?

"Those were fun," Korenaga recalled, as she received a hug from former student George "Keoke" Carter, Class of '69 — whose wife, Yvonne Yarber Carter, also Class of '69, was one of nine former homecoming queens honored in yesterday's parade.

"We didn't need any permits, no policemen, and there were no expensive insurance policies" with the on-campus parades.

But even the small campus parades had ended by the mid-1980s, Korenaga said.

So, has a Wai'anae High Homecoming Parade tradition been re-established? Landford-Bright said it all depends on a high level of community support and a lot of volunteer effort.

"It's not like we're planning on doing the parade every year," she said. "This one was just part of the 50th anniversary celebration. But I'm not saying it should stop. My thought is that next year, if they want to have a parade, maybe it doesn't have to be so big."

The parade was followed by a special two-hour homecoming dinner at the school and the big football game between the undefeated Wai'anae Seariders and the Leilehua Mules.

The festivities continue today with an alumni homecoming dance at the high school cafeteria from 6:30 to 11 p.m.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.