Last Wednesday, many students gathered in Helmick Commons to enjoy the annual Student Activities Board (SAB) Fall Carnival, hosted by SAB’s two new “spirit” chairs, Ashley Dyson and Summer Fields.
, According to Dyson, a politics and history major, she and Fields are not only new to their positions as spiritual chairs, but also to the SAB executive board at large.
Dyson said it was definitely difficult for her and Fields — a triple major in law, politics and society, English and sociology — to learn all the moving parts of their new roles.
”However, once we got into the swing of things, it was much easier to adjust to this new position and plan this carnival event,” said Dyson.
Anna George, a junior who serves as SAB’s vice president of programming, said she thinks the fact that Dyson and Fields were both brand new made the carnival better than before.
“I always think it’s good when the people who are planning have never done the event before, because then there are usually new ideas that they bring to the table,” George said. “Then, they don’t feel like they have to do what previous chairs have done.”
Dyson and Fields changed many aspects of the carnival from last year. According to Fields, one of her main goals for this year was to rearrange the inflatables and games to make the event feel less “cluttered” than in years past.
“We tried this year to spread things out and really use the whole Helmick, not just the front end,” Fields said.
Fields also said they chose to remove some of the attractions that didn’t get as much attention last year and swap them out for things people might want to do.
“As an example, we only added a normal bounce house because you don’t see normal bounce houses at adult parties anymore,” Fields said.
Additionally, Dyson said they decided to invite Fermata the Blue — Drake’s co-led acapella group — to perform in addition to Brocal Chords, who also performed last year.
“I think it added a lot more variety,” Dyson said.
The last big change Dyson and Fields made to the carnival was to invite a Drake student, junior Cameron Lee-Parker, to draw cartoons for the event instead of hiring a professional.
“We wanted one of our student artists because I thought that would add a more personal touch to the atmosphere,” Dyson said.
Overall, Dyson and Fields think the carnival was a success, as the students who attended seemed to have a lot of fun. They each said it was hard to choose what their favorite aspect of the event was.
“I think my favorite part of the carnival was just seeing everyone come together after planning it all summer…and seeing everyone happy,” Fields said. “The food has been a really big hit, so I guess that makes it my favorite food.”
Although the carnival has just passed, the spirit chairs are looking ahead to two upcoming events they have planned for the month of October: the Taste of Des Moines food festival on October 12 and the Halloween Spooktacular, which will take place in Olmsted sometime around Halloween .
Although not all the details for Spooktacular have been finalized, Dyson said they already have some fun events coming up, including a haunted tunnel, an arcade room and a mechanical bull.
“Trust me, there’s a lot more fun things planned that can’t be revealed right now,” Dyson said, and she encouraged students to attend if they want to find out what fun things SAB has in store for the evening.
