Forget about whenever the high school happens to celebrate it. Everyone who graduates from East Greenwich High School knows homecoming happens the night before Thanksgiving.

The tradition is known locally as Big Wednesday. On Thanksgiving eve, anyone – and some years seemingly everyone – who claims alumni status from EGHS can be found at one of the local bars in town.

“Everybody loves the night before Thanksgiving,” said Anthony Ucci, Class of 1995. “I don’t know if it’s because we’re a small town or if it’s because we have a lot of bars but it seems like everyone you went to high school with is out the night before Thanksgiving.”

While Ucci said he is getting to be on the older end of the Big Wednesday spectrum, he is by no means the oldest participant. A group of high school friends who graduated in 1982 still make it a point to meet up for a drink that night.

“It’s been the busiest bar night of the year in E.G. for more than 20 years,” said Conrad Swanson, who is in his mid-forties now. His crew consists of five or six loyal alums who meet every year for Big Wednesday. Sometimes there are as many as 20 people at one bar from that era, said his friend and fellow classmate Guy Asadorian.

Swanson remembers, in his twenties, celebrating the evening at P.J. Casey’s Pub. In his thirties, when he would go out for Big Wednesday, that same bar was called Frankies’. Now, it’s called the End Zone, and it’s still a part of the Big Wednesday tradition.

“I remember my brother going to the End Zone when I was younger and hearing all the stories,” said Tim Tierney, who lives in Providence now but said he has hit up the last 12 Big Wednesdays. “I was finally able to sneak in when I was 19 or 20. I recall [my brother’s friends] opening the back door for us.”

Local bar owners are as enthusiastic about the occasion as the alumni are. For them, it is more like Black Wednesday, the tavern equivalent of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving known as one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

“It’s the busiest night of the year in town,” said Mario Abbondanza, the bar manager at the Grille on Main. “It’s been like that for the 13 years that I’ve been here.”

The Harbourside, which has been closing for the winter in recent years, opens up again for the entire Thanksgiving weekend. But it’s Big Wednesday that pays the bills for the busy holiday weekend.

“We could ever disappoint them,” said Frank McCarthy, the general manger of the Harbourside, said of the Big Wednesday clientele. “It’s a great night for us.”

John Butler, who opened McKinley’s in 2003 and isn’t from Rhode Island, said he was surprised at the crowds that Big Wednesday attracts.

“In other locations, the night before Thanksgiving isn’t like it is here,” he said.

“It’s a real custom. When I opened McKinley’s someone told me it was a big night and that I should be ready for it.”

Peter Huntington graduated in 1994 and lives outside of Boston with his wife and infant son these days. His extended family has moved to Watch Hill. But even though he doesn’t eat his turkey dinner in town anymore, he still has a beer or two at one of the local watering holes the night before.

“Big Wednesday is proof that we all descended from animals,” he said, trumpeting the unofficial East Greenwich holiday. “Like the Emperor Penguin, every year we follow our natural instincts and return to the familiar confines of E.G. to reunite, socialize, engage in elaborate courtship rituals, and in some circumstances, even mate. Or at least practice mating. I wonder how many Big Wednesday marriages and/or babies there are out there?”

My02818 couldn’t find any Big Wednesday babies, but there is at least one married couple, with a child on the way, who first courted each other that evening.

“We didn’t start dating until months later, but I think I laid the groundwork that night,” said a Class of 1992 graduate, who asked not to be identified by name.

Big Wednesday is also the night the football team holds its annual alumni dinner. That certainly adds to the crowd, but is by no means the only constituency out that night.

Laurie Faber graduated in the mid-1990’s and is now a teacher in New York City, but still tries to meet up with her high school friends for Big Wednesday.

“This night offers the opportunity to see and reconnect with others,” she said.

“It shows the strength of E.G. as a community, and the hold that [East Greenwich] has on some of us.”