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“More cowbell” takes on new meaning when it comes to homecoming season in Texas. In fact, everything is more when it comes to mums.
The custom of wearing the extravagantly-adorned creations to high school homecoming games has become a competition itself, with the once-simple corsage transforming into an increasingly larger accessory each year.
In North Texas, seemingly no one keeps mum about the fall phenomenon.
"I think they love the spirit and tradition," Amy McCuiston, co-owner of the 39-year-old Plano store The Mum Shop tells PEOPLE.
Festooned with ribbons, teddy bears, flowers real or faux, and, yes, cowbells, mums hang from students’ shoulders and sometimes around their necks on the day of homecoming — in classes, at pep rallies and at the game — and can be weighty (and noisy) showstoppers that are personalized and one-of-a-kind.
It all makes for a rite of passage that has roots all over the South, but it didn’t start in Texas, according to Texas Highways.
The creation, which originally featured real chrysanthemums, debuted in Missouri at a homecoming football game in 1911, per the outlet. In 1936, Texas Highways reported, the first sighting in the Lone Star State was at a homecoming game at Baylor University in Waco.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via Getty
McCuiston, who oversees a 15,000-square-foot store and predominantly works with schools to fulfill students' orders, tells PEOPLE she's seen it all in her nearly four decades of making mums.
In the 1980s, artificial flowers began to replace the real deal due to the onset of the hot glue gun, she says. The durability and accessibility of fake florals also were game-changers, as were electronic cutting machines like the Cricket and Silhouette.
But mums are not impervious to pop culture influences.
"This year, we've seen a lot of pink [requests] because of Barbie," she says, adding that there have also been a lot of glitter orders.
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In Princeton, a small town about an hour north of Dallas, students put their own twist on the tradition, building a mum so massive that wearing it was beside the point, according to NBC affiliate KXAS-TV.
The 18-foot steel-backed tower featured ribbons designed by students in the advanced floral class and a frame built by the agriculture shop class at Princeton High School.
But the monster mum proved to have the same feel-good result as its smaller counterparts.
"The whole point of the mum was to show school spirit, and clearly it worked because we won the homecoming game," student Upneet Kaur told the station.
And McCuiston agrees: "With the spirit and camaraderie, there's nothing like Friday night lights in Texas, right?"
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