Ethan Smith, Staff Writer
Celebrate Armstrong, Armstrong’s biggest celebration of the year took place on Thursday Oct. 19. Over 50 departments and student organizations set up booths to showcase what they have to offer for students here at Armstrong. Attractions were also on display to everyone in attendance. Attendees could ride a mechanical bull, mount a rock wall, play at a dunk tank or with inflatables and small carnival games and could also enjoy live music.
The booths set up by the student organizations were both informational and fun. Many booths also orchestrated some type of activity for the populace. Some booths held raffles, some held games and others held contests.
If you stopped by the Armstrong Police Booth, you could have entered in their raffle for a faculty parking sticker (functional until July of next year)! A few booths had it set up where viewers could play ring toss or goldfish (the game that everyone loves). And still, some booths just gave out Armstrong merchandise; but either way, all the booths offered something fun to do and enjoy for everyone in attendance.
The rides were a great addition to Celebrate Armstrong this year. They gave everyone other fun things to do besides booth-visiting. The mechanical bull ride was very entertaining. As passengers ‘saddled up’ one-by-one, everyone too would pull their phones out for the chance to put their friends, struggling to stay on, on Snapchat. The rock wall allowed people to flaunt their dexterity. Races to the top of the wall even started to create friendly competition. The dunk tank was also a fun attraction, and of course the person in the dunk tank talked trash. However, he ate his words more often than he probably expected. Although the inflatable crash course was put up to accommodate a niche preference, it too garnered a decent crowd. Races to get out of the course first, ensued.
Along with all the attractions, snow cones, cupcakes, hot dogs, BBQ and drinks were served throughout the party with live music from a DJ who played through the entire event.
A pirate ship was also set up in the parking lot along with the five-year tradition of the ‘car-and-sledgehammer’, which took a heavy beating from the college students who took advantage of the “much-needed” stress-reliever.
Chris Beckworth, who is a freshman majoring in psychology at Armstrong, gave his opinion on Georgia Southern continuing this Armstrong tradition: “We should totally have Celebrate Armstrong next year because of the sense of friendship and fun that it brought to our campus.”
Olivia Fama, who is also a freshman at Armstrong and majoring in Radiology, agreed with Beckworth, saying, “We should have some type of celebration for Armstrong because in the end, we will be Armstrong, but we will be Georgia Southern’s Armstrong campus, therefore I think we should continue the tradition.”
This wasn’t the first Celebrate Armstrong, and it hopefully won’t be the last. Regardless if we are Georgia Southern or Armstrong State, it is important to take the time to celebrate the community, the campus, and our peers in a fun, in an eventful way.
