UA graduate students lend hand for Fayetteville’s winter events
Posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Graduate students at the University of Arkansas have lent their faculties to a couple of winter events in Fayetteville.
Holiday Hoops and the Lights of the Ozarks lighting parade this year will carry the marks of the recreation service promotions class taught by UA Professor Merry Moiseichik. Her students are receiving class credit for their input into the two activities.
Work being done on the parade will aid the Fayetteville Convention and Visitors Bureau and Chamber of Commerce, which have partnered this year in the management of Lights of the Ozarks and related features.
"They're helping us create a great experience for the parade and the time surrounding the parade to make sure this is an event the visitors and residents will always want to come back to," said Shelly Stewman, tourism sales manager with the bureau.
Stewman has met each Wednesday since Aug. 23 with the class, which spends one of its three hours discussing the events.
Students are working to increase interest in the parade to help downtown businesses. With Holiday Hoops, they hope marketing efforts will lead to increased attendance and more excitement during the high school basketball tournament.
Moiseichik's classes have a history of providing services through class work. Her recreation and administration classes work with at least one community each year to help improve their recreation departments. Her risk management class has provided services for Lake Wedington, the HPER Building and a local hotel.
"It brings the purpose of the class into reality for the students and connects the theory with the practice," Moiseichik said of their participation in such projects. "They also improve their portfolio and, thirdly, they are able to network with people in the professions, so they learn what the profession is expecting and have some connections when they get out."
The class and organizers began sending invitations last week to encourage involvement in the parade. The theme this year will be "A Bedtime Story," inspiring float creators to incorporate a Christmas story into their designs.
Stewman hoped organizations would sponsor floats as ways to market and bring awareness to their causes.
Jingle Bell Jog this year will relocated from the Square to Mount Sequoyah in conjunction with Spirit of Christmas, an event involving storytellers and carolers and organized by the Mount Sequoyah Conference and Retreat Center.
Organizers of the lighting ceremony still hope to bolster the atmosphere around the Square by adding entertainment and possibly closing the north side to allow for food vendors and a winter market.
Another change will be Santa Claus concluding his trip around the Square in Arvest Plaza. In past years, Santa would set up in the Fayetteville Town Center Plaza, requiring the ladder truck carrying him to navigate the Square again after its initial pass that signals the illumination of the lights.
In the future, organizers also would like to extend the lights north along Block Avenue and along Dickson Street, but for now, they'll continue gaining new perspective from the university students as they ponder how best to grow the opening celebration and parade.
"The students have changed the event," Stewman said. "It's great to have a partnership because we have so many resources at the university that businesses could use. They're entirely taking over the Light the Night parade portion of Lights of the Ozarks. It's been much more active as far as recruiting people to be in the parade."
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