Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1997)
Iowa State holds weekend-long all-campus bash By Erin Gibson Senior Reporter AMES, Iowa—The weekend was every police officer’s heart attack and 100,000 visitors’ dream. Someone blocked off the streets. Someone hired a few bands. Every third house held couches and coolers on its lawn. Somebody scheduled a parade, then somebody fired up the grills. And most everybody had a good time. VEISHEA, Iowa State University’s all-campus celebration7 drew visitors from across the Midwest to Campustown, a small area of Ames ad jacent to the campus. VEIS^IEA’s letters stand for the original five colleges of the university: veterinary medicine, industrial sciences, home economics and agriculture. The weekend marked the last few days of the 75th anniversary of VE3SHEA, a week when Iowa State celebrates campus unity, diversity and years of proud gradu ates with fairs and a parade. For the celebration, student volun teers barricaded Welch Street—a street lined with college bars and eateries — and replaced its usual traffic with fair like food stands, games and loud bands. As the skies darkened Friday night, visitors poured onto the streets. They swarmed in and out of crowded bars and around children cuddling corn dogs and ice cream. Cheering crowds egged on many partygoers who battled friends in heavily padded jousting or boxing matches on airpads. The fiesta stretched for blocks off Welch Street- Caropustown residents invitedfiaends andstrangersonto their lawns for more food and music. Then the beer cups and cans began to pile up in well-trodden yards, and , parents took tired children home to retreats in quieter neighborhoods. Saturday’s sunrise lulled many VEISHEA veterans to sleep, but at noon the parade’s dramatic Iowa State drumline marched them back to the fiesta. Productive mayhem Rich Harter, executive director of the Ames convention and visitors bu reau, said VEISHEA brings about $1 million to the Ames community. “It really is a huge event for this community,” he said. Television cameras and photographers converge on the event, making it a bril liant public-relations tool, Harter said. Brent Bryant, an Iowa State gradu ate who started the celebration on Welch Street in 1993, said he knew the event was known across the country as a drinking man’s paradise. But it’s more than beerfor area residents. “It’s a tradition,” he said. “There’s more to this than just a simple event. It’s part of the fabric of this community.” Bryant said he started the Welch Street celebration after a crowd rioted and overturned cars in 1992. The first riots came to VEISHEA in 1988, he said, and the community refused to support the violence and de struction of property. As a result, there was talk of discontinuing VEISHEA in 1993, said Daniel Faidley, who was co-chairman of the event this spring. VEISHEA has had its problems in the past, he said, but the riot was blown out of proportion. “Those who were here wouldn’t call it a riot,” Faidley said. The police had busted many off campus parties that night and “chased everybody around,” he said. Party goers were thrown into the streets, and about 50 to 100 drunken people held the “riot” that stained VEISHEA’s reputation for the second time in four years. VEISHEA’s organizers knew the nature of the party weekend had to change or die, he said. Now there’s no alcohol involved on campus or on the packed Welch Street, Faidley said. The bars that line the street remain open, though. The other party Across the street from the Welch Street celebration, a lawn full of col lege students piled onto a handful of dirty orange and brown couches that only a fraternity could love. A quick survey found every third house within six blocks piled with similar couches, children,and crushed goat inside-^re^^^^^^sigff! At one party, die A ’ Vette” honked its way into the driveway. “ft was a Chevette,” said Bill Donavan, a former Iowa State student and the car’s designer. “Bought it for 16 bucks — tax, title and license — a week ago.” since men, a nandtul or party-crazed engineers had transformed the small, rusted-out car with a dying engine into the S.S. Drunken Barney—a purple car with racing stripes, built-in beer holders and a 12-foot-long party deck on top. They rolled green turf over me deck, built safety railings and added a ladder and a cup to catch golf balls. During me day, Barney was a putting, green. And without drunken students on top, Barney .was street legal, said Donayan. But mat’s no way to throw a VEISHEA party, he said. The car went from lawn to lawn of campus parties Saturday night. It picked up friends — mainly girls — and kept right on going until an officer sent Barney home. Donayan was breathless and laugh ing as he recalled me joy shared by the police officer. “He said, ‘I want everybody off of there, now! And I want the thing home and in park in five minutes be cause it’s going to look damn funny in the impound lot.’” Cleaning the dream It rained early Sunday morning, just hard enough to wash the sticky, spilled beer and food from the side walks, streets and driveways that held thousands of revelers just hours before. “It was perfect timing,” said Ben Dohrmann, a student VEISHEA vol unteer who cleaned up after the Welch celebration until 5 a.m. Sunday. “It rained for a good two hours and just kind of swept the streets for us.” The parade, which was “just un real,” may have drawn well more than the expected 100,000 visitors, he said. VEISHEA seemed flawless this 1 year, Dohrmann said. And as for next year, he said, everyone is invited. TOP:STACIE ADOLF (right), a junior at Iowa State University, jousts with her friend, senior Stephanie Furrow, on Welch Street Saturday afternoon. A loud VEISHEA crowd chanted, “Bet her!” and “Come on!” as AdoH aimed her final blow to knock Furrow off a padded pedestal. ABOVE: THE SWEETWATER BAND plays loud country rock as a senior rodeo queen waves to the crowd In Saturday’s VEISHEA parade on the Iowa State University campus. VEISHEA organizers estimated 100,000 people lined the parade route. left; THE “VEISHEA ’VETTE” makes a stop at a Saturday night party near the Iowa State University campus. .. » Photos by Erin Gibson