Colors Fly: Students open Homecoming Week with street painting, chalk dance
Homecoming Week kicked off Monday afternoon with student groups huddled around Aggie Bull-evard, painting their logos on the street. It was followed with an opening dance on the HPER field.
“It’s just a great opportunity for people to come celebrate their Aggie pride,” said Sloan Bailey, traditions director of the Student Traditions Activities and Arts Board. “It’s celebrating why it is great to be an Aggie and how much we all love Utah State.”
In years past, Homecoming Week has started with a paint dance, but this year ASUSU decided to used chalk instead.
“Last year there were a couple problems with paint getting on buildings,” Bailey said. “We decided to do something completely different and go the way of chalk.”
Chalk was thrown from the stage to cover dancers in bright colors. Students stood in line to pick up the bags of chalk used to throw on themselves and others.
“It depends on how the chalk will stay, but paint would have been a lot funner,” said Clarissa Boston, a freshman majoring in theater. “But I haven’t got my chalk yet. If it is anything like the color festival it will be really cool. It’s outside, so I can breathe.”
It was the first dance at USU for many freshmen students, including Marissa Singson, a freshman majoring in special education.
“There is a good turnout and a lot of energy,” Singson said. “The DJ is really good.”
Before the dance, students lined up on Aggie Bull-evard and painted the street. Many different clubs and organizations on campus participated in painting different sections of the street. Prizes were given out to the clubs with the overall best painting, best theme, and most artistic work.
“It’s cool to see all the variety in our school and see the different things people come up with,” said Kelsy Ensign, a junior majoring in public relations. “My favorite part is being able to see the diversity of our clubs on campus and see what’s important to them and what they incorporated into their design. It’s fun that they give us the opportunity to get involved.”
Megan Prince, a sophomore majoring in business, designed the Kappa Delta sorority’s street painting. She said she incorporated the Homecoming theme into it by giving it a celebratory look.
“We thought that school spirit would be nice so we did the Aggie ‘A’ and then we have balloons and a couple streamers,” Prince said. “I thought it was really cool to see how Kappa Delta connected to the university. A lot of the time sororities are overlooked, but we really strive to be a part of USU.”
Other Homecoming events throughout the week include comedian Marcus Hardy, the Mr. USU Pageant, Homecoming Dance, True Aggie Night and the football game against UNLV.
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