The women of Mauck, Benzing, and New Dorm invite all of campus to throw on their boots and flannels for a hoedown in the Mauck parking lot this Saturday, Sept. 28 from 7-10 p.m.
There will be live music, dancing, a pie-baking contest, and games like ring toss and donut-eating competitions. The winner of the pie competition will get to go to the top of Central Hall with Associate Dean of Men “Chief” Jeffery Rogers at a time of their choosing.
Between 7 and 8:30 p.m., there will be live performers playing fiddles, violins, violas, cellos, and possibly a bass. The music will accompany the dancing, some of which will be taught by New Dorm Resident Assistant Julia O’Neil.
Head RA of Mauck Residence, Maria Forsythe, said the RAs chose the parking lot because it’s located right between the three upperclassmen women’s dorms. The RA teams wanted to host an event that unified the three dorms — and really all dorms on campus.
“We’ve been wanting unity among all RAs across campus,” Forsythe said. “So we want to get the dorms to come together. We want other dorms to support our event. One of our missions this year has been to support other events, other RAs, and other dorms.”
Jolene Estruth, the Head RA of Benzing Residence, said the team intentionally planned for the event to occur soon after homecoming week so that they could continue to unify campus.
Estruth added that the idea of a campus-wide hoedown has been suggested in previous years and then discarded due to the work it requires, but this year she wanted to make the idea a reality.
“It was a joke of an idea that we’ve thrown around in years past,” Estruth said. “But this year I suggested it to my team as something serious, that I thought would be really fun to do, and then we invited the other dorms to join.”
In order to clear the space for the event, Campus Security will start blocking off the parking at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
