Battle of the floats: CMU style
Hearts rapidly beating. Students frantically working. The clinking of tools and equipment.
This is what people witnessed, if they attended Central Michigan University’s Battle at the Floats. Around 9:40 p.m., students began to pile into Finch Fieldhouse to either help create floats or to watch and enjoy the live music and refreshments.
What started out as a field house full of Program Board members excitedly preparing for the arrival of students, quickly turned into a montage of fun, laughter, hard work and entertainment.
Stephanie White, Battle at The Floats facilitator says that event is meant for everyone to relax and to work together to kick off the homecoming game.
“The Battle at The Floats is an event, in which students from different organizations and residence halls come together to decorate their floats. They’re given fours to do so. They’re really here just to have a good time, relax, and work together to finish their floats for the last part of the competition and to fire up for the game," said white.
At the beginning, some floats had little to no decorations on them. However, as time progressed, more students entered the building to help with planning and building the floats.
Also, ideas began to come to life. Empty floats turned into creative attractions.
While some students worked non-stop on their floats,relaxed and enjoyed jovial atmosphere. Groups were bonding with other groups, celebrating and enjoying each other’s company. A game of ‘balloon ball’ was initiated, in which students competed to dunk a balloon into a basketball hoop.
Some students even began to dance to the live music played by the band, Still Thinking. In between breaks, the band members enjoyed the atmosphere too. Still Thinking lead singer, Mitchell Reetz said he was excited to perform at the live event.
“We’re excited to be here. We like to get students fired up. There’s a lot of float building going on, so we’re more of the background music, but it’s alright. We appreciate everyone for coming out and hooking us up with the event," said Reetz.
Multicultural advisor Jenna Stacy, and Vice President of Trout Hall Halee Brennan were both pleased to discuss the idea behind their float.
“The idea behind our float is to represent the Central State Teacher’s College of 1927," she said. "We’re going to dress as teachers and we’re going to represent how Central was represented in 1927."
“We’ll have a chalkboard with the name of the school and old textbooks, with an apple,” said Stacy.
Calkins Hall resident, Abby Donbrock said the theme of her float was 50’s. They wanted to build a diner.
“The inside of the float is the diner, and we’re going to have a table and a juke box," she said before the parade. "There’s going to be a couple of people sitting on bar stools, sipping milkshakes.”
Larzelere Hall was announced the winner Saturday morning.
