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Winter Carnival gets off on the right foot

The 100th anniversary of Michigan Tech’s Winter Carnival roared to life Wednesday evening with the all-nighter. The Inter-Residence Hall Council entertained a boisterous crowd with a slate of All-Star Game contests for broomball’s different leagues. Pancakes, sausages, and other breakfast staples could be found in Fisher Hall. Speakers were set up by the Audio Engineering Society and manned by the staff of WMTU. Pasties, chocolate bars, and other delights were for sale at stations throughout campus. Plenty of carnival games were offered, everything from a long platform to complete belly slides to hoop tosses.

The main draw of course was the snow statues. By 9 PM, many of the all-nighter sculptures were graduating from the forming phase to detailing. The month long statues were farther along, but no less mysterious. This year’s theme is, “Come one, come all to our 100th Carnival!” It’s broad enough that individual fraternities could go in very different directions with the story they want to tell. Most opted for a collection of images carved in white, rather than one individual scene.

Tom Sapak of Tau Kappa Epsilon says that each phase in the building process needs to be taken seriously to get a great end result.

We move from forms to slushing to finer sculpting and detail. So, it’s about two weeks for each, [maybe] a week and a half.

Dane Riha and Justin Liakos of Delta Sigma Phi say having fun is the most important thing, because it is too time consuming if you don’t get enjoyment out of it as the builder. Having an audience is more of a secondary benefit.

The statue is more for us. But at the end of the day it’s tradition at our house and we love doing it. So, we build statues for us, it’s just a perk that everyone else gets to see them and enjoy them. Our house has been part of it for the past 75 years.

Tyler Brown from Hancock’s Phi Kappa Tau says the statue is a uniting goal, helping to get every member to pull in the same direction.

We call it our biggest brotherhood event of the year. It brings us all together to go towards a common goal each year, and we really enjoy doing the best we can do each year.

Judging will take place this morning. Keweenaw Report will have results from statues and the rash of special events taking place through the weekend.

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