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Although activities have been taking place on and around campus for the past couple of weeks, this afternoon marks the official start of Winter Carnival when “All Nighter” gets underway at 4:00 pm.
Many students will use the 16 hour window to build a small snow statue, while others will use the time to finish and touch up their entries in the “month long’ build category.
“We’ve been running behind schedule quite a bit. The weather’s been kind of messing with us a decent amount. It’s either been too hot or too cold so we can’t come out and work. We’re just trying to put in as much time as possible while we still have the good weather,” said Cyle Kugelard of Sigma Tau Gamma. Cyle and his fraternity brothers are building a large snow statue in the front yard of their frat house on College Avenue, just a little ways down the street from Tau Kappa Epsilon.
Fraternity member Scott Darios said, “The theme for Winter Carnival this year is ‘Myths and Tales of the Past In Our Frigid Forecast’. You can kind of see we’re doing a Norse themed statue and you’ll see the rest of it Thursday morning.”
“Some people are going with Greek legends or other stories from books and movies. We were completely designed and ready to go before we left for Christmas break so when we got back we could start right away,” said John Frischmon, Statue Chairman of Phi Kappa Tai, whose presence in Winter Carnival is a spectator favorite.
While most of the participating displays are in Houghton, Phi Kappa Tau’s 30 foot statue is located across the canal in Hancock and fills the entire yard, estimated to be an acre.
Darios said, “Total man hours gets up in the thousands. We’ve got about 30 – 35 members this semester and we work 3 – 5 days a week for 4 – 6 hours a night or so.”
That type of commitment has paid off for the group as they have ranked 1st place in the contest for nine of the past ten years.
Frischmon said, “A lot off work for everyone and it’s a good experience. We do it for the community and it’s real fun to see you guys come and ooh and ahh.”
Judging and public viewing of the statues will take place tomorrow morning at 8:00 am.
