Radio City. Photo Courtesy of Casey Austen.

Bands Bright Giant from Des Moines, Iowa, and Radio City from Emporia are coming together for a second time at 10:30 p.m. tomorrow night at Beer:30. Guitarist for Bright Giant Josh Davis said this summer the two bands tried to play a show together, but stomach sickness kept the band’s drummer Will Locker off the stage. Davis and guitarist Noah Mass did an acoustic show instead.

“My drummer got some sort of food poisoning or the flu or something and couldn’t even sit for sound check, he’d just puke and puke and puke, and so our trip got cut short that time,” Davis said.

Bright Giant is opening and Davis said the band is bringing some new songs. He said they are excited to play for a college town.

“I think younger folks and that college age, somewhere in that area like our music best and those are the kind of people we want to play in front of,” Davis said.

Radio City guitarist and Emporia State graduate student Eric Murphy said Bright Giant is like a “band girlfriend” in that the bands are willing to help each other out and play together.

“They help us and we try to help them when we can, but they’re further along than we are, so it’s huge. It’s awesome that they do what they do for us,” Murphy said.

Guitarist for Radio City Matt Kosinski said the two groups met at a Record Bar show in Kansas City about six months ago. Bright Giant went on before the Emporia-based band and Murphy and Kosinski were both impressed. He said the bands have played together various times since that first show.

“We had just a mutual enjoyment of each other’s sets and then finding out that they were awesome guys too, everybody in that band is just good people and they play great music and it’s just a blast hanging out with them,’” Kosinski said.

Davis said the appreciation is mutual and both bands are scheduled to play together more in the future, including all this weekend and Labor Day weekend.

“It’s good to have bands like Radio City to trade with because we always know we’ll have solid performers with us right away,” Davis said.

Kosinski said the crowd in Emporia is usually really receptive if a band gives their all, whereas in other places the band has played, the audience doesn’t get as into it. He said unknown bands show up at Beer:30 and if they “play their hearts out” they get a response.

“We’ve played places outside of Emporia where you play balls to the wall, hard as you can, put every ounce of energy into the song and you look out there and nobody’s even paying attention at all,” Kosinski said.

Murphy said other bands from out of town have come in and noticed how much fun the crowd has and passed the word along.

“There’s just really not a lot of crowds like there are at Beer:30. Every band we’ve brought has loved it and told other bands about it,” Murphy said.

Murphy said Radio City recently finished recording their first full-length CD in St. Louis that should be released sometime in November. He said the band plans to have a CD release parties in Emporia and other cities where they play.

Kosinksi said there’s a difference between seeing a local band and a touring band play. He said he hopes people come out and see that Radio City is serious about the music and is actually becoming a band.

“There’s supposed to be a difference – local bands are just rag tag kids that just put a bunch of stuff together, and that’s the beginning of the evolution of a band. You’ll see it once you get out and about and on the road,” Kosinski said.

Lauren Walbridge

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Berch

The Granada Theatre is encouraging students to “Rock into College” with bands Between the Lines and Berch on Saturday, August 21 at 8 p.m. Granada director Jessica Buchholz said the show is a back to school celebration, but anyone in the community is welcome. The show is all ages and the cover charge is $5.

“Last year we had a movie the night of the Block Party and we thought we’d try a little something different this year,” Buchholz said, “Live music always seems to be a pretty big hit with students and the general population.”

Between the Lines is from Emporia and percussionist Victor Rodriguez said playing at the Granada was a dream for him since it was renovated. The show will be the band’s fourth performance at the theater.

“We really enjoy playing there, it’s a good venue. We’re very glad Emporia’s got that,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said the band has been playing together for five years and covers a variety of music from classic rock and party songs to country and rhythm and blues. The drummer said he’s excited to showcase some of their original music on Saturday.

“We have a big repertoire of original songs considered alternative rock, but we are contemporary rock I guess,” Rodriguez said.
Berch’s lead singer Colin Elmore said his band is from Springfield, Missouri and has been playing together about a year and a half.

“It was kind of like a joking around thing at first, but we started taking it seriously,” Elmore said.

Elmore described his band’s music as “all over the place” with a sound that ties it all together. He said some of it has a country music structure, but some of it is more overdriven rock.
“I guess the best way to describe it is Coldplay with a saxophone,” Elmore said.

Elmore said Berch is touring for a few days, starting in Bentonville, Arkansas, going to Kansas City and ending in Emporia. The band is set to release their first c.d. September 17.

“I’ve heard really cool things about the area and that live music is kind of an active thing in Emporia,” Elmore said.

Unlike Between the Lines, Berch has never played in Emporia, and Elmore said they’re excited to meet new people here. He said the band cares about people and they love to make friends wherever they play.

“It’s kind of like we want to come and serve people by playing music, which sounds kind of overboard maybe, but really it’s a joy to get to go to places even if people really don’t come,” Elmore said. “We just want to meet whoever does come,”

Rodriguez said he listened to Berch on Myspace and is looking forward to opening for them.

“They sound very good,” Rodriguez said. “I know they travel quite a bit. They’re a very polished band,”

Buchholz said the Granada tries to get at least one local band to play once a month, as well as other bands from outside of the Emporia area.

“We did a lot of different shows last year for like local bands and I think it’s really important to support local music here in town,” Buccholz said.

Lauren Walbridge

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The Deedles

For the first time since May, Emporia’s The Deedles are playing at Beer30 on Friday at 10:30 p.m. Bassist Adam Smith said the band has some new material that they’re excited to play and that he never knows what to expect at the local bar.

“Usually the next morning you find random articles of clothing, flip flops, stuff like that all over the bar, which is definitely proof that people had a good time,” Smith said.

Bar owner Josh Olsen said he’s known most of the band’s members for about nine years and they frequently play at Beer30.

“They just bring a professional side of music to whatever bar they play, just from being on the road,” Olsen said.

Guitarist and vocalist Garret Briggeman said the band has gone through various changes over the years as far as members, style and name. Originally, it was called Locamachine, then the Dewayn Brothers and as of last August, they became the Deedles. Briggeman said it started out as an experimental rock band, and then moved into more bluegrass.

“It’s all just kind of been an evolution from one project into the next,” Briggeman said.

Smith said he had been involved with a band called Oakhurst in Colorado, and after touring together in 2007, he made friends with the members of the DeWayn Brothers. In April 2008, Briggeman called him to see if he could play bass for the Deedles.
“I played mandolin and electric guitar in Oakhurst, but Garret called me up and asked if I could play the bass and I said ‘No, not yet’, and he’s like, ‘Well you want to play bass in the rock band? I said sure,” Smith said.

Smith said the band’s sound hits everything from modern rock to classic rock. He said its blues, country, and the band’s bluegrass roots are still visible.

“It absolutely is different than anything we’ve ever done, I mean it’s basically just rock. It’s everything that the word rock which is also a pretty broad word, encompasses,” Smith said.

Jamie Briggeman, guitarist and vocalist, said a lot of the band’s songs are ones that she and Garret would perform acoustically because they didn’t quite fit in with the bluegrass feel of the DeWayn Brothers.

“We’ve had these songs for a long time, it was just kind of like they were on the shelf, you know, so once the bluegrass band dispersed we finally had a chance to really focus on it and make it our goal to do the songs full time,” Jamie said.

Smith said it’s difficult having the experience that the members of the Deedles do and having to start with a new band that nobody’s heard about. Despite having to start from the beginning, Smith said he thinks with all of the touring and experience they all know what to do this time.

“We have to take what we know about it and just start from the ground up, but we’ve learned so many lessons about what to do what not to do that we feel really good about this being the one,” Smith said.

Lauren Walbridge

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Although it was sunny and 68 degrees outside at 7 p.m. on Friday, the Emporia Relay for Life was held in the Emporia State HPER building in gyms D and E rather than on the track in Welch Stadium due to thunderstorm warnings. The relay lasted until 8 a.m. Saturday.

“We really wanted to make sure we had it inside so we wouldn’t have to do anything with our luminaries in the event of rain,” said Tina Khan, event chair and ESU alumni.

This was the first year the relay was held at ESU after being held at Emporia High School for 16 years. American Cancer Society staff partnerAngela Preuitt said the venue was changed in order to help the event grow.

“There wasn’t a lot of room to grow (at the high school), they’ve been doing work on the track, on the field and the sidewalks and it’s kind of been a little issue for us in the past couple years,” Preuitt said.

Forty-three teams participated and raised a total of $41,000 for the American Cancer Society. Of those teams, 20 were from ESU.

“We’ve got a lot of involvement and the community’s still involved so I think it’s great that the community and ESU are coming together as one,” Preuitt said.

The theme for this year’s relay was “Survivor Relay” and the gyms were decorated with a sort of island theme.

“It was really cool to have a play on words, survivor, as in cancer survivor and patients and treatment, but yet Survivor the show, you know it’s hip and fun, so we had that double entendre,” Khan said.

Teams signed up through the American Cancer Society Web site or by calling their hotline. They paid a $10 commitment fee and were asked to raise $100. They then received participant t-shirts and showed up to walk in the relay.

Brittney Rinehart, chair for Chi Omega sorority and junior elementary education major, said her house was divided into five teams and each was assigned a team captain. Each team raised at least $25 and the sorority raised $2,000 total.

“I had a friend that was on the committee last year and I realized that we do this every year for Chi Omega and I just decided I wanted to be in charge of it because it’s really important to me,” Rinehart said.

Rinehart said a lot of the girls in Chi Omega have been affected by cancer, and they are passionate about helping to possibly find a cure.

“People donate money and they see it as an opportunity to maybe cure cancer or fight for cancer because everybody’s been affected in some way or another, so it’s just a really good way to be involved in it and try to help,” Rinehart said.

The relay was kicked off with a lap for cancer survivors, and then all participants were invited to join. There was a silent auction with baskets donated by teams, a frozen t shirt contest, a “miss relay” contest where male representatives from teams dressed as women to see who could raise the most money, a whiffle ball game, balloon tosses, crayon coloring contests for kids and various other activities to raise money throughout the night.

“Anything that comes in tonight will go to the American cancer society for research dollars and local programs and services,” Preuitt said.

Khan said that she’s participated in Relay for Life since high school and feels that it’s important to promote awareness and raise money to fight back for those with cancer because everyone has met someone in their lives that has been affected by it.

“Kansas is really big with their college Relay for Lives and you know, if you have work or a job, get your coworkers and have a team, so every level of relay, you could do,” Khan said.

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Tie dye was the theme and covered Kellogg Circle from 6 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday as Emporia State channeled Woodstock with this year’s Flintstock event. The Paperclips opened for bands Antennas Up and John Henry and the Engine.

“We tried not to go on any avant-garde jam sessions or anything like we might have in Woodstock if that had been the case,” said Jake Briscoe, Paperclips’ guitarist.

Graduate adviser for the event Katie Moldenhauer said the nameFlintstock is a play on Woodstock, with Emporia State being in the Flint Hills. She said it’s an end of the year celebration that ESU has had for a long time and after not having it for a couple years, the Union Activities Council brought it back last year and it was a success.

“It’s a good opportunity just to enjoy yourself even if it’s just for five minutes, to get away from studying or finishing up projects or whatnot and it’s just completely free,” Moldenhauer said.

There were free corndogs, funnel cakes and popcorn as well as an inflatable obstacle course, inflatable slide and a graffiti wall for people to spray paint. Groups from around campus and businesses from the community including Airsoft Club, Greek Life and Midas Touch tanning salon had tables at the event. Senior Week had a table with a water balloon toss with a twist – water balloons filled with slime. Lacey Hansen, Senior Week chair said the slime went with the event’s theme “Nickin’ it Old School.”

“When I was asking around seeing what people really wanted to see with senior week and the Nickelodeon theme, kind of the resounding answer was slime, so that was kind of a lot of pressure,” Hansen said.

Seniors were given the chance to enter a raffle at the table and CDs and DVDs donated by CDTradepost were given to those whose names were drawn in between bands.

“Only seniors can get tickets and they can get tickets for participating in the slime activity and then get candy bars if they slime somebody,” Hansen said.

Moldenhauer said Ha Ha Tonka was originally supposed to play, but the band is currently touring, so UAC booked John Henry and the Engine instead. The Paperclips earned their opening slot by winning the Battle of the Bands in February. Moldenhauer said members of UAC went to a National Association for Campus Activities conference in Arlington, Texas, and saw Antennas Up play and decided that they would be a good band for Flintstock. The Paperclips and Antennas Up are both from Kansas City, Mo., and John Henry and the Engine is from St. Louis/ Columbia, Mo.

“We had all of UAC, the council and committee members vote on who we would like and that’s who won,” Moldenhauer said.

Briscoe said there was some trouble with wind and equipment for the bands; one had a cymbal fall and cut a microphone cable and various other pieces fell. Bassist Jason Richards said they were lucky none of the accidents happened with their stuff, but they did have to pay special attention to drummer Chris Evan’s set.

“We had to like rig up this like drum set inside of itself so everything interlocked like a Jenga puzzle,” Richards said.

Briscoe said that despite the wind, he felt good about the show. He said that if it hadn’t been in Emporia, people wouldn’t have come because of the weather, or they would have been too busy enjoying the corndogs and funnel cakes to listen.

“It feels great, we love being in Emporia. Coming to Emporia can’t be a bad time, you know what I mean. It’s a lot more inviting and responsive than a lot of towns,” Briscoe said.

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Emporia State showed its gay pride Monday night with its first ever Alternative Beauty Contest at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Ballroom. Students dressed in drag to compete for Mr. and Ms. ESU Drag. There were three rounds: one for talent, one based on how the contestants were dressed and one where the judges interviewed the contestants.

“As far as acting out, this is the biggest I have ever seen an audience for in 10 years, so it was awesome and the energy from the crowd, from the performers, I just loved it,” said Luke Wolford, junior sociology major and PRIDE president.

Wolford said the event was a follow up to Friday’s Day of Silence as a part of Pride week, which supports gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. For Day of Silence, students took a vow of silence to bring attention to discrimination in education. Wolford said this yearESU’s Day of Silence was dedicated to Missouri Southern, a university where sexual orientation and gender identity are not a part of the university’s non-discrimination clause.

“Today is supposed to be about being loud, being fun, being as visible as possible and showing that, you know what, Friday we showed you what it’s like if we didn’t have a voice, now let’s show you what it’s like when we do,” Wolford said.

Wolford said PRIDE has had drag performances as a part of acting out before, but there has never been an actual drag competition at ESU. He said he had seen it done at other campuses like the University of Kansas where it went over well. The event was partnered with Zoiks! who performed in between rounds and the Union Activities Council.

“We thought if we opened it up to the student body, made it a competition, it would get a lot more of a positive response, get a lot more student feedback, and get more of the campus involved in pride week,” Wolford said.

The competition was judged by Professor of Sociology Giovanna Follo, Psychology professor Jim Pershing and Professor of Social Sciences Deb Gerish. Senior Physical Education andEnglish major Austin Schopper won Ms. ESU with his drag persona Valerie Wasboyskee and Senior Communications major Brittany Zirkle won Mr. ESU for her persona, Chuck Taylor.

Because of a one point difference in score, the overall winner was not one of the two finalists, but was Senior Sociology major Harrison George with his persona called Harizona Persona. Mr. and Ms. ESU were awarded with crowns and the overall winner received a DVD.

“I don’t think it’s hit me yet, I mean it’s like I just wanted to come out and have fun and stuff. I didn’t think I actually had a shot at winning and here I am, so I don’t know,” Schopper said.

The overall winner, Harizona Persona was a feminist character. George said that he came up with his drag persona while preparing for the competition. He said he didn’t want to wear a wig and shave his legs for the competition because he felt like he would be conforming.

“It just made me stop and think about it more, and this character, this feminist kind of character, which are a lot of beliefs I have anyway. It was the first chance I ever had to express them from a woman, an actual woman’s point of view,” George said.

Zirkle said that for her, being involved in it was a learning experience. She said she thought it gave people on campus an idea of what life is like for those whose lifestyle is dressing in drag.

“It definitely gave perspective to what some of my friends go through where they do put facial hair on every day and live that life, so I thought it was a pretty eye opening experience,” Zirkle said.

George said it was also a learning experience for him and that it sent the message that no matter how we dress or act, we’re all people and we’re all the same.

“I thought they did a really good job, it was entertaining and it was light but it also carried a really strong message and I was blown away that so many people attended,” George said.

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Emporia State’s Theatre Department is ending the theater season with Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s psychological drama “HeddaGabler.” The play will run April 21-24 and April 27-May 1 in the Frederickson Theatre. All performances begin at 7:30 p.m.

“There aren’t a whole lot of bells and whistles and a whole lot of broad action, it’s a psychological play, and it demands maturity,” Jim Ryan, director of “Hedda” and professor of communications and theatre said.

Ryan said the play centers around one character, a woman by the name of HeddaGabler, played by Kelsey Fredericks, and the interactions other characters have with her. He said the play was a part of Ibsen’s realist phase in his writing and deals with the influence of heredity and environment on behavior.

“(She) was raised by a real strict, domineering, military man named General Gabbler and it’s sort of shaped the way she deals with other people. It’s her story and those individuals who come in contact with her. It’s her desire to have power over others and influence other people,” Ryan said.

Senior theatre major Scott Swezey plays Hedda’s husband, George Tessman. He said his character gets manipulated by his wife, but continues to see the good in her and not the bad. He said to show how his character was influenced by heredity, he worked with costar Brianne Simon, who plays his aunt, to mirror each other’s mannerisms and show congruity between the two characters.

“I guess a lot of what I did was I looked at his background and the thing that the director really wanted to stress with us is that these characters were products of their upbringing,” Swezey said.

Ryan said Ibsen is a truly important playwright in history and that Hedda is one of his most important plays. He said it is a challenge for actors and because it is in the Frederickson theatre, which is a smaller space, it demands subtle acting.

“It’s one of the truly important plays in the canon of dramatic literature, it’s a play that had a great affect on the development of dramatic literature and the techniques of writing realistic plays,” Ryan said.

Senior theatre major Lindsay Roland, who plays TheaElvstead, said the play is not very plot driven, so it’s easy for the audience to get caught up in the characters and their problems.

“I would encourage people to come because this isn’t a show that they’re going to get to see very often,” Roland said.

Swezey said Ibsen is regarded nationally as the second best playwright to William Shakespeare because during the 1800s when he was writing, no one knew what he was doing because he was ahead of his time.

“It would be like today, an Eskimo revolutionizing theater and no one would know what it is because no one at the time read Norwegian drama,” Swezey said.

Ryan said a few new things have been brought to the text and that the overall quality of the play will be interesting. He said anyone who comes will be intrigued by the story. Swezey said the acting is going to be phenomenal.

“It’s sexy, it’s dark, it’s violent – it’s basically everything that modern drama is in film,” Swezey said.

Tickets for the play are $5 for students, $8 for seniors and $10 for adults and are available from the university box office at 620-341-6378 or toll free at 877-341-6378.

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Courtesy Photo

Costume designer Andy Byers creates animal mating scenes for the Sundance Channel’s short film series “Green Porno.”Byers is speaking at 3 p.m. on April 21 in Science Hall Room 72.

The series is written, starring, directed and produced by Isabella Rossellini.

“It’s (Rossellini) dressing up, usually in a unitard with some sort of crazy eyeballs on or wearing wings and she’s humping some sort of paper sculpture that I’ve made,” Byers said.

In the series, Rossellini wears costumes created mostly out of paper. The set design is also predominantly made of paper. Byers said that Rossellini wants to keep the design simple.

“Usually if it’s silly and simple, she goes for it, and a lot of times if I try to make things more complicated, she shies away from it unless she finds it really attractive, so I usually try to go somewhere in between making things really attractive and making them really crappy,” Byers said.

Byers said that he will show some of the films and photographs of his work. Professor of Photography LarrySchwarm said Wichita State University’s art department was interested in a speaker ESU had last semester, so they did a sort of trade. This week, Byers is speaking at WSU for the TallgrassFilm Festival at the Ulrich museum.

“Last semester we had a speaker that they were very interested in and so they piggybacked onto us and since we were bringing him in anyway, they got him to come up to Wichita, and in doing that, it sort of opened up some doors,” Schwarm said.

According to the Sundance Channel Web site, Byers received his bachelor of fine arts in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute and his master’s degree at Ohio State University. Byers said by the time he was in graduate school, he wasn’t really using clay all that much.

“I was just using clay as a material like anything else, so at that point in time I was building these sort of theatrical pieces and I was building animals and things, but the only thing that was ceramics anymore was usually the eyeballs of the animals,” Byers said.

Byers said he never really understood costume design and that’s why he became interested in it. He said after he started listening to The Beatles in college and saw the “Magical Mystery Tour” album cover he figured out that costumes design and fashion design are not the same.

“It doesn’t have to be the elegant pieces that some really super famous designer made, you know, they can be a trash bag with a light bulb hanging over your head and you call yourself an idea, or whatever. That’s kind of how I’ve been looking at them,” Byers said.

Schwarm said the art department has art forum as a requirement for all students enrolled in the art department because it’s difficult for the students to see other contemporary work.Art forum is funded mainly by the Visual Arts Board. Every other Wednesday, a different artist comes to speak.

“The art department feels like a very big part of education for an art student is to see what other artists are doing and Emporia being somewhat isolated, it’s difficult for our students to get in to see galleries and museums,” Schwarm said.

Schwarm said any students or members of the community are welcome to attend any of the art forums.

“We try to cover as many different disciplines as we can, glass, ceramics, painting, this is the first costume designer we’ve had to my knowledge,” Schwarm said.

Byers said he’ll talk a little bit about what to do after graduating with an art degree and how to get out there and become an artist.

“I would like for (students) to get out of it that they can make stuff that looks shitty as long as it’s cool,” Byers said.

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Collaborative glass sculptors Jenny Pohlman and Sabrina Knowles from Seattle, Wash., are in Emporia this week to work with glass blowing students and demonstrate their work at the guild’s annual Glass Blowout on Saturday in the Art Annex.

“While we’re working, we’re explaining to the students some basic fundamentals of manipulating the material and how some of those fundamentals might apply to their own work that they’ve been doing,” Pohlman said.

The blowout begins at 9 a.m. with glass blowing demonstrations, then a potluck barbecue at 5 p.m. and ends with a glass auction at 7 p.m. Pieces from students, faculty, guest artists Jenny Pohlman and Sabrina Knowles and guest artists from previous years will be available at the auction and bluegrass band The Skirts are playing at the barbecue. Proceeds from the auction go to the Glass Guild’s supplies, scholarships, visiting artists and for the guild to attend the glass art society conference in June. The event is free to anyone who wishes to attend.

“(The auction) allows us to bring in artists like Jenny and Sabrina and it also allows us to upgrade our equipment and just fix things up around the shop that we normally wouldn’t be funded for through the school,” said Kristin Elliot, senior glass blowing major and president of the Glass Guild.

Associate professor of glass Patrick Martin said the blowout is the guild’s open house. He said current and previous students and their families as well as artists from around the state and artists who were once students at ESU attend every year. Martin said it was called the “Blowathon” before he started working at ESU 10 years ago.

“It’s been going on before I got here. We changed it a little bit to more of a visiting artist demonstration thing, but it’s still our open house,” Martin said.

Pohlman and Knowles said they have been working with one another for 18 years. Martin said the guild tries to bring in a working professional artist every year and this year the students get to see how a team works together. He said a lot of their work is mixed media.

“You’ll see how a team makes their work or and also how one will do one certain aspect of the process while the other will do other aspects and that’s how they work together,” Martin said.

Knowles said that though she and Pohlman have opposing aesthetics when it comes to their work, the message of it is unified. She said they both do glass blowing, both design and both do some metal working but Pohlman does the majority of the metal work.

“We found that the core of our philosophies about life and humanity and people just run totally parallel, so our work sort of brings our different aesthetics, but the vibration, kind of the soul of the work is unified,” Knowles said.

Elliot said Knowles and Pohlmanare also there to critique student work and show them techniques they might have never seen before. She said it allows them to see what life might be like when they graduate and possibly become professional artists themselves.

“They live in Seattle, which is like the glass place to be, and so they’re around all the professionals up there, so tips that they see that we will never see in Kansas they bring to us which is a big opportunity of the blowout,” Elliot said.

Knowles said she and Pohlman are enjoying working with the guild and feel like they’re all old friends. She said she wants to help students develop work ethics and stay true to what they want to do.

“We want to help them develop a nice work ethic and to respect one another in the hot shop and to recognize and appreciate that it is a team game so to speak and also that the limits are limitless,” Knowles said.

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With a $5 cover charge and drink specials of $2 wells and $3 bottles, America’s roots were brought to the Granada Theatre in the form of bluegrass music when the Basement Pickers Association and The Skirts performed on Friday.

“It was fantastic. I’d never seen either one play before, it was a good time,” said Scott Goering, senior computer science major. “I had a blast and everybody had lots of energy.”

The Basement Pickers opened with their nine piece ensemble including an upright bass, ukulele, mandolin, three acoustic guitars, fiddle, banjo and a variety of other instruments including harmonicas and a washboard. The band wore Hawaiian shirts that coincided with their cover of John Prine’s “Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian.” The band covered traditional and contemporary “fiddletunes,” as well as other bluegrass hits.

The Skirts is a three piece, all female group out of Cottonwood Falls made up of bassist Sarah Bays, dulcimer and percussion instrumentalist Melissa Tastove and guitarist Elexa Dawson. All three women contributed vocally, harmonizing and taking on solos. They performed original songs and covered songs like “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson, “No Rain” by Blind Melon and “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King.

Bays said that The Skirts had played in Emporia before at Natasha’s and Beer:30, but they want to do more since they’re only 20 minutes away.

“We kind of had a lull there for a little bit where we were just kind of hanging out, working up some new stuff and now that the weather’s getting warm and people are out doing stuff again, we’re looking to play some more shows,” Bays said.

Dawson said she was impressed by the atmosphere of the theater and that someone in the audience said it felt like they weren’t in Emporia.

“In here you forget that you’re still in Emporia,” Dawson said. “I think Emporia’s doing a great job supporting the arts council and supporting the Granada Theatre.”
Bays, Dawson and Tastove have been playing together since May 2009, when Elexa and the Hitchikers, a band that Dawson and Tastove had worked with, broke up.

“We all just started playing together over at (Dawson’s) house, jamming and hanging out and eating food and got a chance to play at a family BBQ and that went really well and then just kind of went from there,” Tastove said.

Bays, who went to K-State as a voice major, said she began playing bass not even a year ago and Tastove said she’s played her instruments for about 2 years. Dawson has played guitar off and on since she was 12 years old.

“I got nails put on for junior prom, so I didn’t play the guitar again for like four years or something until I was 20 and I went to Winfield and picked up the guitar that I’d learned on and then started playing again,” Dawson said.

Tastove said the people that inspire their music are people they cover like Neil Young, Jonie Mitchell and The Beatles.

“Well, Elexa writes most of the songs. A lot of the other songs we do are just cover songs of, you know, just bands that we like or just songs that we really like,” Bays said.

Tastove said the best part about playing together is that they all love each other and have a lot of fun. Dawson said there are a lot of “That’s what she said” jokes. As far as playing music in general goes, Dawson described it as an out of body experience.

“I think that it is able to convey messages that words alone cannot,” Dawson said.

Bays said that as far as long term goals go, the band is just looking to make a c.d. and get their music out there

“We’re not in it to get big and make lots of money,” Bays said. “We’ve all got our day jobs and we all love our lives and what we do and we want that to stay the same, so we’re not looking to go on tour or anything like that, just produce a CD and be able to share our music with people.”

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Photo Illustration by Jonathan Elliott/The Bulletin

Starting April 1, students can no longer add funds to the vending account on Hornet Cards. Assistant Director of Business Greg Larson said lack of student usage and lack of program support from vending companies lead to the discontinuance of the service.

“There are a number of reasons for that as far as non support from the vending companies, they just don’t see the upside as far as sales,” Larson said. “Sales have decreased over the past three years in that program and also it’s very costly to maintain.”

Any student with money still on the vending account can stop by the Hornet I.D. Office in the Memorial Union. Funds less than $5 will be added to the student’s “Hornet Bucks” account, or declining balance account. For amounts greater than $5, students have the option of putting it in the declining balance account or getting a refund check.

Larson said the office is accepting requests for refunds or transfers until April 1, 2011. Senior administrative assistant Terri Conger said the process for finding out how much is in a student’s account and transferring it to the declining balance takes about five minutes.

“If it’s over $5, they have a choice to put it on the declining balance or we can get a refund check for them, which of course will take a couple days to do,” Conger said.

Larson said the decline in the service’s usage began about three years ago and it corresponded with an increase in the use of credit and debit cards in other retail areas like the Hornet Express.

“It’s just sort of replacing that spending,” Larson said.

Conger said she’s had one student come in to transfer her funds. She said although the amount in that particular account was small (Conger said it was around 23 cents) students should check in case they have more money than they think on their accounts.

“I think the one woman had just a little bit. It’s lost money and it’s not much, but its money that they’ve forgotten about that they won’t utilize that just sits there and they forget it’s even on there,” Conger said.

Larson said a large part of the change is that the magnetic stripe on the back of the card is old technology. He said the office is working on issuing a request for proposal for the beverage contract on campus to change the vending machines to either an online system like the “Hornet Bucks” account, where all account information is on a computer, or a system that is compatible with credit or debit cards.

Larson said right now the programs are too expensive, but in a year or two there’s a possibility of it being integrated.

“I think we’re sort of on the bleeding edge of that technology right now where it’s very costly and within the next couple years we’ll see the cost for that sort of a program decrease, and that’s when you want to jump on board, not when it’s so costly that it’s not cost efficient to implement it,” Larson said.

Larson said that when the Hornet Cards were changed to cards without the Lyon County State Bank identification on it, they couldn’t find a company that produced cards with the vending stripe on them. He said if students were using the program and it was cost effective, they would have found cards with vending stripes.

“It really was a dying technology and because fewer people were using it we just saw less benefit for that and we see greater things on the horizon for Hornet Card accounts that are tied to newer technology, better reporting, more transparent for everyone, better for auditing purposes, and if they lost their card, they wouldn’t lose their funds in an online account- much better off for everybody,” Larson said.

No other uses of the Hornet Card were affected with the change.

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