Blitz Week brings campus together for a cause

By Morgan Jackson, Features Editor

Last week on Bison Hill was Blitz Week, a week focused on raising funds for a specific charity or cause.

This year, money was raised to help mitigate the cost of OBU’s Global Outreach trips, so that students can go out to many different parts of the world and serve people who are in need of the Gospel.

Currently, the co-chairs of Blitz Week are Braeden Mastin and Olivia Dudley.

“Blitz Week is a week in April every year dedicated to helping a charity/cause of our choice,” co-chair of Blitz Week Braeden Mastin said. “This year we focused on helping students afford GO trips. We strive to be light of the world by helping others, bring the campus together and to leave a positive impact on others.”

Last week’s events included a multitude of activities that raised money for the cause.

The first Blitz Week event was the Paintathon. Students gathered in the Gieger Center Sunday Night to paint canvases. The paintings were put up for auction all week in the Gieger Center. The starting bid for each painting was five dollars.

Another event that spanned the entire week was a campus-wide game of Humans versus Zombies. For two dollars, students could sign up to play the game.

Humans vs. Zombies trans-formed campus last week. Students and faculty had Nerf guns in hand, ready to defend themselves from the zombies.

To distinguish those who were playing the game, and which side they were on, players wore pink bandanas on their arm or on their head.

Humans could use their Nerf guns to stop a zombie from tagging them, which would cause them to switch sides and more their bandana.

Players often had to alter their plans so that they were not exposed outdoors in high traffic areas. Players could not be tagged on or off campus.

“The wildest experience I’ve had so far is when me and my friends, Sam and Noah, got surrounded by seven zombies in the library parking lot,” freshman Christian ministry major Silas Bell said. “We had to sprint from the library to Agee, and I thought I was going to die from exhaustion.”

Bell’s sprint must have been worthwhile, because at the time of the interview, he was still on the human side. On Friday night, the remaining humans and zombies gathered in the Oval for a final showdown to end the game.

Blitz Week also hosted a faculty versus varsity basketball game, an escape room in the library, a percentage night at Qdoba, trivia night with UCS and the Mr. Bison pageant.

The Mr. Bison pageant was held last Thursday in Yarborough Auditorium.

The contestants were Cole Kliewer, Caleb Newton, Caleb Dyer, Caleb Corff, Grady Liston, Jimi Parker, Joel Tetmeyer and Noah Graves.

The competition was hosted by Kirt Henderson, director of Student Success.

The judges of the competition were Resident Directors Kyle Opskar, Dayla Rowland, Lanie Allred, Tanner Roberts and Erin Gulserian.

The event began with a dance number featuring all of the contestants choreographed by Sarah Cordle, a sophomore cross-cultural ministry and sociology major.

“My experience with the Mr. Bison pageant was one for the books for sure,” Cordle said. “I have never choreographed before and most of the guys never learned a dance before, so that was interesting, to say the least, but they all worked hard to learn the dance. What made it so great is that they were having a great time doing it. It was so much fun watching them finally perform it and they all did a really great job!”

Then came the introduction of the contestants and their escorts. This also served as the formal wear category. Henderson’s introductions of the contestants included hilarious fun facts about each of them.

Next up came the talent portion of the pageant. Talents included, but were not limited to neck wrestling, cooking demonstrations, lightsaber reenactments, interpretive dancing with a puppy and more.

After the talent portion, the contestants went into the audience to collect money from their fans as votes for the audience favorite award.

Then, the final five were announced: Caleb Newton, Caleb Dyer, Caleb Corff, Grady Liston and Jimi Parker.

They moved on into an interview portion. Each contestant was asked a couple of questions.

After that, the judges deliberated, and the new Mr. Bison was crowned.

Caleb Dyer won third place. Caleb Corff won second place and the Audience Favorite award. Caleb Newton won Best Talent with his impressive neck wrestling. Taking home the big prize was Jimi Parker, who spent the entire competition dressed in a Nacho Libre costume.

For his talent, he gave the audience a cooking lesson involving raw hot dogs. “It has been extremely rewarding and fun leading and facilitating fun events, and bringing the campus all together,” Mastin said