Beer, More Beer!

Nora G. Hertel

Wed., May 16, Lawrentians flooded the Viking Room and several bars along College Avenue for the university’s first-ever sponsored senior pub-crawl.
This year’s Senior Programming Committee – in charge of weekly Senior Nights and other class activities – coordinated T-shirts and drink specials for participating students.
John Budi, Senior Class President, mentioned that the event elicited debate within the committee and with the university. Condoned drinking at this level comes with risks such as “overcrowding and over-rowdiness,” Budi explained.
These factors were considered in the planning process, though the event went off without any major complications.
Six bars on College Avenue offered enthusiastic support for the pub-crawl. The participating bars included Lawrence’s Viking Room, Dr. Jekyll’s, The Wooden Nickel, The Firefly Lounge, Cleo’s, Ye Olde Tavern, and The Bar on the Ave.
Over 100 students bought T-shirts that served as tickets for the drink specials, and also created a sense of solidarity. Additional students joined in the crawl without pre-registering, so with or without the official T-shirts, Lawrentians filled the bars on College Ave.
Of the bars on the crawl, some of those closest to campus and favored by students were nearly full to capacity. Booths, bar stools, and standing room were occupied at the Nickel, the Firefly, and Cleo’s.
The shirts that most participants wore had checklists on the back for students to track their progress up the avenue. Participating junior, Candice Gangl, claimed that she and her friends “didn’t allow [each other] to ‘check off’ unless we ordered the drink specials.”
In addition to check marks, students wrote notes on each other’s shirts, with humorous and sentimental messages similar to those left in yearbooks.
The shirts came to serve as guides for the night and as keepsakes of the event, whose main goal was to facilitate student bonding.
The pub-crawl served to bring Lawrence upperclassmen together in a non-formal environment. All the money raised from the event went directly to pay off the T-shirts and other senior class expenses.
This was a concerted – and appreciated – effort to bring students together. Gangl expressed her satisfaction: “It’s really nice that Lawrence offers this stuff, because it’s our last year, and it’s sad to leave. It’s really nice to get together.”
All in all, the event was considered a large success by the planning committee, the participating students, and the bar owners. The committee brought business to downtown Appleton, and brought upperclassmen together in their last month at Lawrence.