Julia Ingram
We all know by now that this year is the 111th Annual Best Ever St. Pat’s and that the St. Pat’s celebration all started in Rolla, Missouri in the year 1908. Students from the Missouri School of Mines took Mizzou’s failed attempt at celebrating the patron Saint of Engineers and turned it into what we all know and love today - ten glorious daze of celebrating and honoring our beloved St. Patrick and jam-packed with tradition. Every year the St. Pat’s Board organization works hard to make sure Rolla has the Best Ever St. Pat’s.
The hundreds of thousands of students that have graduated from this school in the heart of Rolla, Missouri all have a different memories from their experiences of celebrating St. Patrick’s day. Through the one hundred and eleven years of planning and organizing, the Board has changed and rotated events that happen throughout the week. Traditions of the celebration of St. Pat’s have been altered over time. Some events during the celebration have been added, taken out, tweaked, or kept completely the same after so many years. One event the Board has added more recently is Green Fridays.
Green Fridays were added in the year 2014, so they are only five years old. Every Friday after fifty “daze” until St. Pat’s is considered a Green Friday. During Green Fridays, the whole campus is encouraged to wear their St. Pat’s Green, (even though most students have been wearing it every day since Winter Break), and meet on Havener’s Lawn from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. There, campus organization members sing a song of a competing organization’s choice and then play fun yard games such as washers and the Pat’s sweatshirt toss. The song lyrics must be altered to go along with the different theme for each week. For the upcoming Green Fridays, the remaining themes are:
● February 8th| Dance Battle
● February 15th| Love Songs
● February 22nd| 2000s Rap Songs
● March 1st| Are You Smarter than a Babyrep?
● March 8th| Irish Songs
Organizations come up with some hilariously clever song parodies, and it is worthwhile to make the trip to Havener to take part in the fun. This is just another way the Missouri S&T campus shows their spirit for St. Pat’s. Students around campus are encouraged to participate in the very special St. Pat’s tradition.
Throughout the St. Pat’s season there are many events anyone can attend. Coming up soon is the annual Snake Invasion happening in the heart of campus. Snake Invasion will occur March 4th through March 6th from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The “snake pit” will be located on campus in front of the library. During the competition, first year members of each organization try and kill snakes, (no worries - they are rubber snakes), with their handcrafted shillelaghs and walking sticks. Students will cheer out “HERE’S TO THE 1ST ANNUAL BEST EVER ST. PAT’S!” and hit their rubber snake with their weapon of choice. Student will cheer this chant one hundred and eleven times, because this year is the 111th year the school has celebrated St. Patrick.
All events during the St. Pat’s season may seem a little strange to a non-S&T student, or to parents when they are told their student spent six hours in a mud pit ripping off heads of rubber snakes. A friend or neighbor from back home might give a funny face when they hear students painted themselves completely green to compete against other students, also painted completely green, in the freezing cold in the middle of March. Nevertheless, St. Pat’s here in Rolla is an amazing tradition, and one that Missouri S&T students are proud of. Here’s to the 111th Best Ever St. Pat’s this year!
