Bluffton University will celebrate Homecoming Oct. 8-10 with an array of activities, beginning with a parade down Main Street at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8.

Also on Friday, Bluffton alumni Robert Smucker, Dr. Paul Ropp and Chad Stearns, along with Dr. Stephen Jacoby, professor emeritus of music, will be honored at the alumni awards banquet, starting with a 6:30 p.m. meal in The Commons in Marbeck Center. Tickets are $15 and may be reserved by emailing [email protected] or by contacting the box office at 419-358-3239 or [email protected].

Saturday's events get under way at 9 a.m. with tours of the upgraded football/baseball locker facility in Burcky Gym. Those tours will continue until 9:45 a.m.

At 9:30 a.m., football alumni will gather for breakfast in The Commons, as will Bluffton alumnae in the Kreider Room, also in Marbeck Center. At the alumnae breakfast, sponsored by the Bluffton University Women's Council, women will share stories of their Bluffton experience and where their education led them. There is no cost for either breakfast, but reservations are requested.

Also starting at 9:30 a.m., high school students and their families may tour campus as part of an Open House Discovery Day-continuing until 1:30 p.m.-and the university's art department will host a reception for artist and 2008 Bluffton graduate Andreas Baumgartner in the Sauder Visual Arts Center. "Traces of Entropy," an exhibition of Baumgartner's large-scale digital prints in the center's Grace Albrecht Gallery, will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Homecoming Saturday.

Summer improvements to College Hall-including a north-side addition to the 110-year-old building-will be on display during tours beginning at 11 a.m. At the same time, visitors can learn about the next campus building, the planned Health and Fitness Education Center.

Leading up to the Homecoming football game, an alumni picnic will be held from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Emery Sears Athletic Complex. Tickets are $7 for adults and $3 for children ages 3-7. The Homecoming king and queen will then be crowned at 1 p.m. at Salzman Stadium, prior to the 1:30 p.m. kickoff between the football Beavers and Manchester College.

Capping the afternoon at 4 p.m. will be a game of Ultimate Frisbee, for alumni, friends and current students, on the Musselman Library green.

The weekend will conclude Sunday, Oct. 10, with the annual fall choral concert at 2:30 p.m. in Yoder Recital Hall. Free and open to the public, the concert will feature choral groups Accent!, Bel Canto and Camerata Singers.