Junior Dravyn Spies, seniors Chris Dick and Fernando Bravo, and junior Taylor Chen and Nathan Stanish (left to right) pose for a photo at the event.

Courtesy | Chris Dick

 

Three dorms will host new events this semester thanks to funding provided by the Suites Residence Shark Tank competition.

Sohn Residence won first place and $500 for a vintage carnival, Simpson Residence $300 for a WWE-style event, and $200 went toward a Koon Residence wing-eating contest on Super Bowl Sunday.

Representatives from nine residences pitched their dorm event ideas to a board of five “sharks,” consisting of five Suites resident assistants in Plaster Auditorium on Feb. 4.

A crowd watched as the sharks reacted to each presentation and chose three winners.

“I wasn’t expecting a lot of people there,” junior and Sohn resident assistant Grace McNeill said. “I didn’t really know what to expect. I just thought we were going to show up in Plaster and I expected there to be five guys in there and we would try to convince them.”

Suites house director and senior Chris Dick said the idea for this event came following the Suites’ event in the fall, Hillsdale Hoedown.

“I was thinking after the Hillsdale Hoedown, and we had had our partnership with the Bloc — Mauck and Benzing — and I was like ‘This is really fun to partner with a bunch of these dorms,’” Dick said.  “‘What if we had an opportunity for some of these smaller dorms to compete for the chance to win a partnership with us?’”

While the Shark Tank event served as the Suites’ philanthropy event, he said the event allows the Suites to work with dorms to bring out the best in both parties.

“This allows us to be able to use our greatest asset, which is money, and then dorms their greatest asset: their own residents,” he said.

The money given out at the event comes from the Suites’ event budget from the year, which they did not fully use themselves, according to Dick.

“Residence halls are given $10 a resident, so every semester the Suites gets $1190,” he said. “We’re carrying over some money from last semester and combining it with the funds for this semester so it allows us flexibility.”

Sohn’s vintage carnival event will feature live student music, a dunk tank, and carnival games, according to their presentation at the Shark Tank.

“Everything in our presentation will be in there,” McNeill said. “We’re going to have a dunk tank, and we’re going to get the Suites to barbecue for us, so that’s a selling point.”

McNeill and sophomore resident assistant Veronica Fogo presented the judges with popcorn and a brief taste of the live music that will take place at the carnival.

The carnival will occur in mid-to-late-April on the patio space between Sohn and Kirn residences, according to Fogo.

“It’s never been used before, so we’re breaking it in,” she said.

McNeill and Fogo said they are excited for campus to see more of Sohn’s community and culture through this event.

“It will hopefully bring a lot of campus together,” Fogo said. “I think a lot of people are interested in Sohn and seeing what we’re all about.”

Simpson’s second-place winning presentation featured a glimpse into what the event, Simpson Smackdown, would look like, and had several wrestlers storming the stage mid-presentation, said sophomore resident assistant Marc Ayers.

“We knew we wanted to make this presentation memorable,” Ayers said. “We thought the best way to do that is to give a small taste of what Simpson Smackdown is going to be all about.”

During the presentation, the wrestlers broke a plastic table, which according to Ayers, is just a glimpse into the drama that will take place at Simpson Smackdown.

“We had one of our buddies go buy the cheapest table he could find at Walmart, trusting that we would be able to break it,” Ayers said. “We had never practiced breaking that table before.”

Although the men of Simpson were hoping to win first at Shark Tank, Ayers said they are excited to partner with the Suites to put on the event. 

“We were hoping that we would get first but, you know, this is kind of like a fairly light-hearted event,” Ayers said. “It was something that we weren’t going to be heartbroken if we didn’t get first. But we knew that going in that we had a solid idea that we were going to be competitive.”

The event, which will take place in late April, will feature mostly Simpson men, along with Chris Dick from the Suites, according to Simpson RA Jonathan Williams. He also said Simpson is currently taking volunteers from any professor who might want to compete in the event.

Koon’s wing eating contest took place on Sunday during the halftime of the Super Bowl. Freshman Seth Doer won, eating 27 wings in 10 minutes, with junior Isaac Doughty only one behind.

Koon resident assistant and junior Garrett Goolsby presented at the Shark Tank event and said once he heard about the Suites’ event, he wanted the dorm to participate.

“As soon as I heard that the Suites were going to be giving money, I started to think about things,” he said. “Because Koon’s budget is pretty small and I was like, ‘OK, this could be a chance to do something a little bit bigger.’”

During his presentation, he placed a mug with the word “alms” in the center of the stage and said he employed some acting skills.

“My whole plan was to seem a little bit awkward, a little bit uncomfortable,” Goolsby said. “I’m not a great actor, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to kind of sell the bit. But you know, I think it worked, and I think the people thought it was funny.”

Goolsby said he is thankful for the money provided by the Suites for an event that otherwise would not have happened with Koon’s much smaller budget.

Fernando Bravo, senior and head RA of the Suites said he is excited for the three events to acquaint Suites residents with the rest of campus.

“With the events themselves, and the Shark Tank event, part of the motivation is to get Suites guys to interact with other dorms, given that most of them are athletes or just people who are already involved in other parts of campus,” he said. 

The events sponsored by the Suites will provide an opportunity for Suites men to acquaint themselves with campus, and vice-versa, according to Bravo.

“When we do an event with another dorm that gives them an opportunity to not only eat good food as normal with that big of a budget, but also to meet new people, which are things that probably wouldn’t happen if we just chose to host an event all by ourselves,” Bravo said.

McNeill said she is excited for more people to experience Sohn’s dorm culture through the carnival, and that she is thankful for the funds provided by the Shark Tank event that makes this possible. 

“It was really cool to see how invested the other dorms could get into Sohn’s dorm culture,” she said. “Because the only relationships our dorm has with upper-class dorms is only what we’ve established this year, so it was cool to see how many people from other dorms came up and congratulated us afterwards and said they’re going to attend the carnival. People seem really into it.”

Williams said he is excited for the opportunity to partner with the Suites and for the events that will take place. 

“The Suites guys are great and we’re happy that they’re helping other teams out,” Williams said. “I think they made great picks, and if they have any more money lying around in the future, we’ll be back.”

Dick said he is excited to put on – and participate in – the upcoming events.

“We look forward to partnering with Sohn and Simpson to create events that serve the needs of the Suites guys and then all of campus,” he said. “I now need to figure out my wrestling character for Simpson Smackdown.”