Seniors stunt freshmen growth in annual contest

Students, staff and family members gathered in the chapel Friday, March 23, to travel around the world in 80 minutes via the 103rd annual Stunt Night directed by the sophomore class SGA officers.  Each class represented a different continent with a few special appearances at the end.

Sophomore history major Luke Beasley, one of the co-directors, said they had been working on the theme  for a year.

"We wanted to try something we didn’t think would ever be done again, or had never been done before.”

For the first stop of the night, audience members traveled throughout Europe with the freshman class in a skit entitled The Amazing Race-Europe  directed by Lauren Pearson.  The students went to Spain, Italy, Ireland, France and England in search of clues to win the race. 

The sophomore class students represented Australia and were directed by Dani Beth Crosby and Elliott Powell.  The narrators, Daniel Rowe and Carrie Norwood, told a fairy tale story of the difference between the kangaroos and koala bears.  In the end, both groups of animals came together in a classic dance-off.

The junior class skit, directed by Alicia Paulson and Ryan Ohendalski, portrayed a trip to Asia for a cooking show, The Iron Chef.  Two cooks competed to see whose dish was the best. The secret ingredient for both dishes was fish tumors. 

The senior class topped off the evening with a trip to Africa.  Directed by education major Melissa Prine and business management major Grant Hickman, who narrated the story about student Tatenda Tavaziva in one of his African tales about Soshie.  The story followed Soshie (Jeff Sutton) as he grew from a little boy until he became Big Soshie and traveled to America to attend UMHB.   
Though the smooth performance may have seemed as if  the senior class practiced often, directors described a different type of preparation.

"(Hickman) pretty much said ‘Here’s my idea,’ and a week before spring break we got together and made the outline,” Prine said.  “We knew people we could put in places that would take the role and run with it, and we could feed off of them.”

Another goal for the class was having fun and enjoying the time together.

Hickman said, “One thing we talked about at the beginning was how in the past we’ve loved the little jokes within that are just for us.  Just for the seniors.  No one else may get them, but we love them.”

“Our class as a whole has great chemistry, and we work well together. We just love being with each other, and it shows.” 

After the seniors finished, David Espinel and Stephanie Moon danced a salsa number to represent South America.

As the emcees came out to announce the winner, the crowd was surprised by North America also being represented. Staff members including Joy Childress, Steve Theodore, George Loutherback, George Harrison, Nate Williams, Adrienne Henderson, Elizabeth Tanaka, Shawn Shannon, Bear Garza, Don Owens, Kristy Brischke and Donna Plank entertained the audience with a dance.

Dressed in black except for white gloves, ties and shoes, the student affairs division staff performed  the surprise they had been working on for three weeks. 

Beasley assures the changes will most likely be seen again in the future.

"We’d really like to see Stunt Night turn into not just the classes, but maybe have four different faculty groups and the four classes.”

At the end of the night, the senior class was announced as the judges’ choice as well as campus winner.  The win for the seniors sends them out leaving behind a legacy.  In their freshman year, they won campus choice and every year since have won both campus and judges’ choice.

"I think all the classes were represented really well, and the numbers were great,” Beasley said.  “I think each class did a good job of having something that was not cliché, just skit night stuff.  It was all original, and I think the (staff) went over well, too.”