Halloween Party Gets Students in The Spooky Spirit
By: Macie Jean
Staff Writer
The International Student Ambassadors hosted the annual Green River College Halloween Party from 8 to 11 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 25 2019.
Activities provided for those in attendance included a dance party, a magic show, a photo booth, and a costume contest. There were many creative costumes dawned by the students and staff, from silly and cute to intricate and scary.
The winner of the contest was Audrey Lee Hang Yee, 16, a Running Start student, who was dressed as a dinosaur. At the beginning of the party, Craig Martin performed a magic show and continued to do card tricks and other slights-of-hand on and off throughout the night.
For snacks, the ambassadors chose a wide variety of finger food so that no matter the dietary restrictions, everyone in attendance would have something to eat.
Among the other exciting activities for students to participate in, the loudest attraction was the dance floor. The music and lights have been provided for the last three years for both the Halloween party and the Lunar New Year’s Eve party by Digital Hitz, founded by Brian Boyd, 46, an entrepreneur.
In past years, the playlists have contained more Korean Pop since that was what was on the pre-submitted music request list.
This year, the international student ambassadors submitted more mainstream pop and hip-hop, since they wanted music that was just as familiar to foreign students as it was to the locals at the college.
“Building a great playlist is really important,” Boyd said. “We do a lot of proms and homecomings, and when doing events for high school and college aged kids, you need to know the current music. We basically just prepare by making sure we’ve got all the current hits.”
He continued to explain that while they prepare a playlist unique to every event, Boyd and his crew also take requests so they can cater to the experience of each individual in the audience.
Since Green River College is so diverse in race and culture, students will tend to request music from a wide variety of influences.
“It really is challenging,” Boyd said, “because the deejays have to balance it all together and come up with the right mixture of songs, and that’s the job of the deejay is to incorporate and get the dance going. That’s a big part of deejaying. Just reading the crowd.”
Sandra Bravo-Rodriguez, 19, a student ambassador from Venezuela, said that plans for the party began in summer quarter by the previous student ambassadors.
When the new student ambassadors arrived in the fall quarter, the planning continued with the finalization of dinner plans, contracts, and the schedule for the night.
There are six international student ambassadors at Green River College, and they are involved across campus year-round.
“We all have the same position,” said Bravo-Rodriguez. “We plan events outside of campus for students, like concerts, retreats, hikes… We do two major events a year, the Halloween party and the Lunar New Year’s Eve party.”
She said that one of the reasons they put so much work into the Halloween party is to give international students the opportunity to experience this American tradition.
“When you’re outside of this country, you always hear about Halloween, and how [to] celebrate it,” said Bravo-Rodriguez.
“We want to give this experience to international students so they can [know what it’s like] to celebrate Halloween.”
The resources for all the events run by the international student ambassadors comes from the international programs, but the events themselves are available to all Green River students.
“Everybody is welcome to enjoy our events,” said Bravo-Rodriguez. “It’s not only for international students, it’s for everybody; we would be more than happy to see every student of Green River interacting and getting to know each other.”
Events on campus are a great way to form bonds with peers and relieve the day to day stress of being a college student.
So remain in the Halloween spirit by sharing the tricks, treats, and scares of Halloween night with friends, peers and family alike.
Stay spooky Gators.
