Lauren Root – Features Editor  

Everyone who’s attended Bishop’s, whether as a student or as a friend, would agree that Homecoming is one of the best weekends in the school year. Every year in September, Bishop’s welcomes home its alumni with many festivities to unite graduating classes of all years. In the spirit of welcoming home alumni this weekend, I had the opportunity to sit down with Cameron Hughes (class of ’96) to discuss his time at Bishop’s. 

Photo courtesy of Cameron Hughes

Cameron, originally from Ottawa, had no idea about Bishop’s growing up. In 1988, one of Cameron’s friends invited him up to visit Bishop’s, which would turn into a trip that changed the course of his life. Once on campus, Cameron attended a party held at a student house, which has now become Kwigw8mna. After seeing the atmosphere and community, Cameron knew that Bishop’s is where he wanted to study.

While at Bishop’s, Cameron started out as an economics major, then transitioned to political science before finally landing in sociology. Throughout his time on campus, Cameron managed to become somewhat of an infamous figure. Cameron was elected to the SRC as the first-year Student Rep in his first year. In his second year, he was the SRC Director of Events and finally in his third year, he was SRC President. It was during these formative years that Cameron discovered another passion – entertaining crowds. While at football games, Cameron would wear a melon on his head (and became known as Melon Head) and would be the person to hype up our crowd. He became so well-known that he was able to start selling Melon Head t-shirts.  

Cameron loved the role of exciting crowds so much that he turned it into a career. Known as the “King of Cheer”, Cameron gets hired by professional sports teams to hype up crowds in big games. He’s attended sports events around the world and some teams that have hired him are in the NHL, NBA and NFL. Cameron also leads company-sponsored talks, where he speaks about inspiration and leadership.  

To share his extraordinary story and experiences, Cameron wrote a book titled “King of Cheer: Stories of Showing up, Getting up and Never Giving Up from the World’s Most Electrifying Crowd Ignitor.” In his book, Cameron touches upon his story with nuggets of inspiration and life experiences tailored to make readers think differently and to inspire them to go down their own path. A common theme throughout his book is the idea of confidence and how it shapes your life. As Cameron states, it’s important to have confidence when you need to stand up in front of a crowd of 70,000 people to hype them up (while sober).  

Toward the end of our interview, I asked Cameron about the impact of Bishop’s on his life, and what life is like as an alumnus. Cameron credits Bishop’s for helping him find his dream career, stating: “[Bishop’s] is a great staging ground for people’s curiosity and interest,” and believes that once you discover that interest, you should feel the confidence to chase your dreams and take a risk.  

Now living in British Columbia, Cameron has found a small (but mighty) community of fellow Bishop’s alumni to stay in contact with. In fact, many of the alumni he has become friends with did not graduate in his class, showing how friends from Bishop’s can be made long after leaving our school.  

Cameron has come back in the past to lead talks on campus and for 10 years, he was the O-Week guest speaker. But for now, Cameron returns to campus as a super-fan, ready to watch the Gaiters roar just as he did back in the ‘90s.