Senior year Hurst Day experience

Gillian Mazur, Editor in Chief

Food, fun, and sprinting students oh my! For the first time in what seems like years, the Mercyhurst community got to celebrate Hurst Day once again. Celebrating what should have been my fourth Hurst Day was my third and final Hurst Day experience. Both freshmen and sophomores alike got to experience what the “hype about Hurst Day” is all about. As in the past, the day began with the annual Mercyhurst-themed scavenger hunt. In contrast to previous years, this year seemed to have so many more teams, 140 groups of four to be exact. The clues this year for the scavenger hunt were also easier than in the past with the first round of clues only consisting of word scrambles of the different buildings around campus. With only a ten-minute break from sprinting the first round, groups who made it to the second round got more complex clues in short poem format and had to run around to four different locations and take a group selfie. While my group didn’t make it beyond the second round due to all the running, the third and final trivia round only took the top three groups.

One of my grievances when it comes to the Hurst Day scavenger hunt is that one does not really need to “know” Mercyhurst beyond the buildings in order to make it to the final round. All a team truly needs to win is fast people and one semi-fast, yet knowledgeable, Ambassador. Once the scavenger hunt ended, all students headed to the middle of campus for fun, food and games with their friends. Out of all of my Hurst Days, this was one of the most crowded I’ve ever experienced. With nice weather and one of the most populated Hurst Days in a while, the lines were just as long for most inflatables with some taking over 30 minutes for a 1-minute experience. One of the returning inflatables was the giant stair tower. While I did not partake in this inflatable this Hurst Day, I did my freshman year. I have since also been skydiving, but I have to say that this inflatable is ten times scarier than free-falling from a plane. I was willing to give this ride another go but did not get to it in time before it was shut down.The food booth themes were cute with Nintendo’s Animal Crossing, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Super Mario themes, and some students including myself even got to take balloons and other themed decorations home. I personally loved the Mac and Cheese from the Donkey Kong booth as it went perfectly with the Pac-Man cookie. While the food this Hurst Day was good compared to previous years, I just wish it lasted longer than 2 p.m. The food booths shut down by 2 p.m.,three hours before the annual steak dinner. A better situation would be for the school or Parkhurst to announce the predicted hours of operation for the food booths so students can plan their day better and not go back home hungry.

In all honesty, I was not planning on attending the steak dinner this year as I don’t really like steak nor did I want to spend the Dining Dollars on it. With some persuasion from my friend, I actually did attend this year’s dinner in the Grotto Commons and was pleasantly surprised when I tried a bite of my friend’s steak. Freshman year I gave it a try, but was disappointed to my surprise, the bite of steak was actually pretty good. Overall, I would have to say that while this Hurst Day was pretty good, there is definitely room for improvement. My hope is that in the future, Dr. Getz and whoever else plans the day will take students suggestions into account while still honoring the Hurst Day traditions of the past.