Elizabeth Madison, Loveland's only three-time state wrestling champion, will lead the 2026 Homecoming Parade as grand marshal on Sept. 17.

The Loveland Athletic Boosters announced the selection on Sept. 9. Erik Shrewsberry of the Boosters' Homecoming Parade Committee made the announcement. The parade begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Loveland-Symmes Fire Department Health and Wellness Center, 227 E. Loveland Ave., continues through Downtown Loveland, turns on Rich Road and ends at Loveland High School (LHS).

Madison, a 2026 LHS graduate, finished her career with a 143-2 record and 130 pins. She is Loveland's first four-time state qualifier, four-time district champion and four-time state finalist.

Those numbers almost never existed.

As a seventh-grader competing against boys, Madison won just three matches. She considered quitting. She stuck with it, improving to 25 wins and a district title as an eighth-grader. Her career took off once the Ohio High School Athletic Association sanctioned girls wrestling before her freshman year. She won state titles as a freshman and sophomore.

Then injuries hit. Before her junior year, Madison tore knee ligaments during a soccer tryout. Surgery and more than five months of rehab followed. She returned to finish as state runner-up on a knee she said still was not fully healed. Shortly after that finals match, she tore ligaments in her elbow and needed a second surgery.

Madison came back for her senior season and went 40-0, winning her third state championship by pin in the finals on March 15.

"Elizabeth is an amazing young lady," Loveland Athletic Director Jayson Bruce said. "To be able to do what she has done through her wrestling career while battling through adversity shows the type of person she is."

Madison also earned the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association's Toccara Montgomery Award, given to the state's most outstanding female wrestler. Head wrestling coach Chris Switzer called it a major honor when he noted the award on X in April, describing it as a statewide vote.

A three-time Fargo Junior Nationals All-American and three-time team captain, Madison is studying nursing and wrestling at the University of Mount Union in Alliance. Her brothers Randy, a junior, and Nathan, a sophomore, are both in the Loveland Tigers football program.