| St. Pat’s 2008 |
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| Written by Larry Mikelionis | |
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This is the perspective of a UMR grad on the St. Pat’s 100th Celebration. I had been eagerly anticipating this event for the past few years and made hotel reservations in March 2007. My family and I (4 UMR grads total) left our homes in Illinois (435 miles from Rolla) as early as midnight Friday so we could arrive in time for the Gonzo games. As it turned out, we really didn’t have to get here that soon. There were only a handful of people at the Intramural center when we arrived at 10:30AM. No one seemed to know what was going on. It was not until 12:30PM or so that a few people started to arrive. The games---ah yes, the games--- as best I could tell, consisted of dart throwing. If there were other games, I missed them completely. Some students were playing catch with a football and others were playing “knock-out” with a basketball. Where were all of the fraternities, sororities and other organizations? The highlight of the afternoon was the Anheuser-Busch Beer Garden and the Skoal tent. By the way, much thanks to Anheuser-Busch for providing free refreshments and the Clydesdales on Saturday, but what the heck was Skoal doing there passing out free tobacco? The parade on Saturday was long, over 1-1/2 hours. It was probably one of the longest, if not the longest, in history. Viewing fire trucks, police cars, cranes, pick-up trucks, motorized lawn mowers and such are to be expected in a parade. What I had a problem with was MST student participation. MST has 19 social fraternities and 4 sororities and numerous other sanctioned organizations. Where were their floats? The floats I did see were pathetic and showed that very little effort had been put into design and construction. This university’s underlying foundation is engineering for Pete’s sake. I have seen better high school homecoming floats. Apparently, the members of these organizations did not see the slide show that was being shown in the Alumni office on Saturday. The floats in the past were great and showed pride in their organizations. I truly believe that if I had arrived in Rolla on Wednesday, I could have prepared a better float then the ones I saw on Saturday. There were several high school bands in the parade. Most of these units were well dressed, some had flag twirlers, and all had banners identifying their school. I think I saw the MST band--- I’m not sure. They were dressed in green sweatshirts. There weren’t very many of them and they carried no banner to identify themselves. I’m not blaming the band members. They are the messengers. MST is a university that is trying to get name recognition. A university looking for recognition needs to address things like a rag-muffin marching band. Take a look around administrators. Would the university in Columbia put representatives like this in a parade? I think not. Following the parade, the reenactment of the original St. Pat’s was held at Norwood Hall. If you were a couple of minutes late, you missed it. I was there and have it on film. The reenactment was sorely lacking in breadth and depth. I hope that no one devoted practice to this event, because it would have been a waste of time. St. Pat and his entourage traveled down Pine St. and then turned to Norwood Hall. After the group arrived in front of the steps, St. Pat got off his chariot, strode up the steps, told the Chancellor (I think he was the chancellor, no one introduced him) to kneel, knighted him, turned to the relatively small audience, told them to kneel, knighted them, and then said, “That’s it.” Only a few minutes had expired. Can you believe it? Needless to say, I was stunned. One hundred years of history enacted in a couple of minutes. Are you kidding? I really felt bad for the former St. Pat’s members in attendance. These are the people who are the mainstay of the St. Pat’s tradition. I really thought there would be a little more dialog and perhaps some narration. In any event, you wouldn’t have heard any of it because the speakers that were mounted on either side of the Norwood Hall steps were never turned on. This was the 100th anniversary of a major event in MSM-UMR-MST history---100 years. Where was the student participation? If this was the effort put into this historic event, I can’t imagine what future St. Pat’s will look like. If the coordinator of this event were living in the working-world as many of us are, he surely would have been called to task, if not outright fired. I know I would have been if I were responsible for this project. I hope I’m wrong, but if the St. Pat’s tradition is to continue it needs some serious help. This help has to come from several venues including the administration, alumni and above all, the student organizations. Maybe I expected too much. |
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