Students celebrate a new semester with the Aggie Fest Fair

Crowds of students came out for the Aggie Fair after the first day of fall classes to celebrate the beginning of the school year at Utah State University.

Aggie Fair was the kickoff event for USU’s Week of Welcome. Hosted on the Quad, the outdoor fair was abound with activity.

Sawyer Hemsley, the vice president program coordinator for the USU Student Association, planned the entire week of welcome this year. Hemsley, a junior in communications, utilized his skills to promote student involvement.

“This is right up my alley, planning events,” he said. “Getting people involved is something I really love to do. It’s a big passion I have.”

Thanks to Hemsley, as well as a team of student directors and volunteers, the fair boasted a long list of activities.

Carnival games greeted participants as they passed through the entrance. Adrenaline seekers headed for the outdoor zipline, as well as a giant inflatable slide.

Some students, however, needed to amp themselves up before braving the slide or the zipline.

“That’s up to, like, the moment, really,” said Taylor Ross, an undeclared sophomore. “When I’m feeling the slide, then yeah, we’ll hit it up.”

While the slide and the zipline certainly garnered a lot of attention, smaller scale activities were popular with attendees as well. One example was a booth where participants could put on sumo suits to try to knock each other down.

“It’s nice to kind of beat up on your roommate,” said Kadee Jo Simmons, a freshman studying human movement.

Simmons adds that maneuvering in the sumo suit is more difficult than it looks. Keyli Sorenson, Simmons’s roommate and a freshman in education, agrees.

“It was so hard!” Sorenson said. “I couldn’t even push the hair out of my face!”

Among the food options, including cotton candy, were food trucks which were included to incorporate the community, Hemsley said.

Bailey Purser, a junior in outdoor product design and development, ran a Beehive Grill booth that served the restaurant’s homemade gelato.

Purser, among other booth employees, represent their businesses during events.

“I work as a hostess and I’m in charge of catering events for fun things such as this,” Purser said on her job at Beehive Grill.

Later in the evening, there were movie screenings on an outdoor projector. “Scooby-Doo” was shown for students with families and a showing of “Jurassic World” followed. Both showings provided free admission and popcorn and were selected to appeal to both traditional students and non-traditional students alike, Hemsley said.

The USU Student Association put time, effort, and resources into the fair to appeal to the majority of students. Their work was appreciated by many attendees, including Nate Loveland, a freshman majoring in engineering.

“It’s the first thing like this I’ve ever been to,” Loveland said. “Especially that it’s all free, that’s pretty awesome.”

Loveland added that he was impressed with the variety of things to do at the fair.

Hemsley said he wants to set the bar high early in order to ensure a successful year of activities at USU.

“I ran for this position because I wanted to give people more, to be able to plan the events and to feel like a bigger part of the university,” Hemsley said.

Anyone else looking to involve themselves more at USU is welcome, he said. Interested students can email the USU Student Association at getinvolved@usu.edu.

Students who want to see exactly what goes on before, during, and after events can follow the Snapchat account USUBlueCrew or like the USU Student Association on Facebook. There are more social media accounts in the works.

“I love transparency,” Hemsley said. “I love to see students see what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Activities continue on for the Week of Welcome until Saturday. For details on what is going on, visit the Student Association’s website at http://www.usu.edu/ususa/wow.

—whitneyhoward@aggiemail.usu.edu