Pumpkin Carving event story by Ericka Dupervil

Ericka Dupervil
English 622
Professor Hertz
October 31, 2013


                                     Game of Thrones Pumpkin Carving Contest: Or NOT



            Tuesday October 29, 2013 in the Stafford Room, HBO, The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs (OMSA), and Diversity Support Coalition (DSC) collaborated together to have a  Game of Thrones theme Pumpkin carving contest, and the winning team gets a prize.

The winning prize was a Roku streaming player, it’s a deceive that allows you to view your favorite TV shows, music, games and more on your TV by streaming it directly from the Internet. With this kind of prize the height of competitiveness was surfaced all around the room.

The contest was a gateway into the countdown of Halloween this Thursday. Series of events has been held in the honor of the holiday on campus; earlier in the week OMSA showed the movie “Mars Attack” and Wednesday the viewing of “Abraham Lincoln: The vampire slayer” was shown to get students in the mood for Halloween.

HBO was the mastermind behind this event. There were HBO campus agents who are students that helped market the brand, provide activities, and the giveaway of the free stuff. “We do everything HBO. We giveaway posters, anything with our names on it,” explained Susan Yen, Junior. “If an organization wants to watch a show that is on HBO, we bring to the campus and provide activities.”
In the midst of the different teams dissecting the insides of their pumpkins, “Shaun of The Dead” was being played in the background. The smell of pumpkins swarm the room as each team races to get that gross step over with.

For some groups pumpkin carving wasn’t really their forte. The United Asian Coalition (UAC) team was very indecisive of what approach to take with their pumpkin design. “We just really want to be original, and cute but not scary,” said Malone Soeun, sophomore, as he shook off the pumpkin seeds from his hands.

Soeun is the Co-chair of UAC, which an Asian student organization, that is run under the DSC. He is also a first-timer at pumpkin carving. His team not being a fan of Game of Thrones, they decided to draw hello kitty.

Unlike UAC, the ladies of Delta Xi Phi were very ecstatic to show off their artistic skills with this activity. “This is my favorite thing to during Halloween… It’s so fun it brings everyone together.” Monique Raymond, senior said. As they were still cleaning out the inside of their pumpkins a few ladies huddled to together to think of an intricate design that will blow the judges away, and which was top secret.

The two judges AliciaAlec Dufield and Robert Richard-Snipes weren’t too clear on what they were looking for, but as long as it looked “cool”. “We all know this isn’t a room of sculptures, so I don’t expect anything 3-D, but we do have some creative individuals,” explained Robert Richard-Snipes, sophomore.
Both judges were randomly asked to critique these master pieces of pumpkins minutes before the event started, so there wasn’t a game plan. “Obviously originality is what we were looking for, other than that may the best pumpkin wins,” laughed AliciaAlec Dufield, junior.

After two hours of pumpkin seeds, pumpkin guts, pumpkin aroma, and pumpkin carving the teams were all ready to present their artwork, except for one.

        The Alliance team was just finishing up their last touches until their knife broke. “We have to find another!” yelled Chloe Martin junior, on the search of a new knife to cut the last chunk of their pumpkin.

            Alliance is also another DSC organization, The LGBTQ+ org. They drew a unique design that emulated the HBO show Game of Thrones, a hand holding a crown. “Yes! We’re done!”Shouts out Martin, as she runs to hand in her pumpkin for display.

As the judges did their job to critique the best pumpkin, in the height of cleaning out the pumpkins and deciding on a designs, many of the teams forgot that the objective was to mimic  the Game of Thrones, so did the judges.

Two winning teams were able to leave with a cool prize. The Alliance took first place by winning the Roku player; second place went to the DXP ladies who won a box set of the first season of Game of Thrones.

“I guess we didn’t explain the rules very well, but all contestants will get something,” said Yen realizing the misunderstanding within the event. Students were able use their creative minds and carve great pumpkins and not leave empty-handed and still receive some amazing prizes.

 Boston Globe Story:
Merrimack Rep’s ‘Mrs. Mannerly’ falls short by: Don Aucoin
This story is about a stage play. I really liked it because it was descriptive of the event. It didn’t have many sources and sounded more opinionated but I liked the way it described the stage play.


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