Western alumni who don’t make it to Homecoming this year may get mailbox reminders that they were missed.

The University Bookstore and Alumni Center staff have teamed up to give visiting alumni the opportunity to send a snail-mail shout-out called “The Nostalgia Card” to friends who couldn’t make the yearly pilgrimage to the Hill, said Jennifer Wethington, annual fund assistant director.

The bookstore will also be fully stocked for all those in attendance for Homecoming.

On Saturday, alumni can drop by the bookstore where Wethington will use the Alumni Center’s database of about 84,000 mailing addresses to look up friends that Homecoming guests may have lost touch with since college. Guests can then personalize the wish-you-were-here-themed postcards, and Wethington will send them.

“We’re really hoping this will encourage others to come back and participate,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘Hey, did you know so-and-so was at Homecoming this year? Let’s meet up there next year.’”

The Nostalgia Card itself may help alumni connect with their past with its image of students in Buddy Holly glasses and beehive hairdos hollering for the Hilltoppers, Bookstore Advertising Associate Lacey Jackson said.

“It’s not a piece of advertising,” she said. “It’s really trying to be, ‘Hey, this is a note one alumni is sending to another.’”

The bookstore and alumni staff will provide the postcard, database usage and postage for free, and visitors are welcome to take a few postcards for personal souvenirs, Jackson said.

Current students are also welcome to send postcards to family members and friends, but since this is The Nostalgia Card’s debut, a limited number of postcards will be available.

She said they’re ordering about 500 postcards to see what kind of response they get.

Wethington said she hopes the postcard will help alumni reconnect not only with each other, but with Western.

“It’s mostly about just keeping connections with your alma mater and continuing that WKU spirit, that famous ‘the spirit makes the master,’” she said.

The bookstore will also have a lot of merchandise to help Homecoming participants sport that spirit, Bookstore Director Shawna Cawthorn said.

In preparation for Homecoming, University Bookstore workers unpacked more than 130 boxes of the usual Western apparel — T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, polos.

But a red, pointy hat also peaked above the packages.

Cawthorn expects a ceramic creature that bookstore staff call “Glover Gnome” to be one of the Homecoming’s hot items, she said.

“He’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said about the garden gnome.

The one-foot-tall Glover in a red football jersey and Western hat, holding a football costs $27.99.

Cawthorn said one factor will determine which other items are popular among homecomers.

“Crazy as it may sound, it’s always dependent on the weather,” she said.

On cold Homecomings, blankets, coats and sweatshirts rake in the most money, Cawthorn said. But when it’s warm, T-shirts, tank-tops and sandals are the biggest sellers.

But come snow, showers or sunshine, Cawthorn said the bookstore will be ready on Saturday.

“We try to have something for everyone,” she said.