Homecoming Queen Mary Sue Godwin from the 1969 Echo

Even if you’re not a fan of cold weather, pumpkin-flavored treats, or changing leaves, you may still have a fondness for the fall football season. It’s the time of year again where students across the state celebrate their schools with the beloved tradition of homecoming.

Thanks to our partner, the Harnett County Public Library, we’ve added 23 more high school yearbooks and a few graduation programs to our digital collections. These yearbooks, which span five schools from 1948 to 1972, give us a look back to homecomings of years past. 

One of the most common traditions in this set of yearbooks is honoring the homecoming court—the group of young women from whom the homecoming queen is chosen. The pageantry of the event takes on various levels at each school; in this 1972 spread from Lillington High School’s Footprints, a few people appear to be arriving on horseback.

Football players from the 1972 Footprints

Another popular tradition of homecoming is the big football game. Although homecoming queens tend to get a fancy portrait in the yearbook, each school seems to have a different way of celebrating its football team. In the case of Erwin High School’s The Hourglass from 1962, that celebration takes the form of action shots of each of the varsity players (plus a spread for the team photo and the coaches). Curiously, there isn’t much recorded about the actual games—who the schools played or who won.

You can see all of the yearbooks in this batch—featuring Erwin High School, Lillington High School, Dunn High School, Anderson Creek High School, and Boone Trail High School—here. You can also see the three graduation programs from Erwin High School here. To browse our entire collection of high school yearbooks, visit our North Carolina Yearbooks page. To find out more about Harnett County Public Library, you can visit their partner page and their website.