A Descent into madness: P.A.N.T.S. kicks off another Fall Ball
From left to right: Corey Nelson, Daniel Abis, John Lorenzo, and Jason Abis dance and sing familiar Halloween tunes.
October is the peak of autumn, and along with autumn comes the stress of midterms, the beginning of the holiday season, and thoughts of November elections. It can be an exceedingly stressful month, especially for college students.
There is one way of relieving some of that pent- up stress, however, and that is going to CF’s annual Fall Ball located in the Webber Center of CF.
The Fall Ball has been around for six years now, and each year, the PANTS club has organized and hosted the event, with a different theme each time.
This year, Ciara Pierce, music and history major as well as the president of PANTS coordinated the event in which roughly 45 people- students, alumni, and guests- showed up.
“The Fall Ball is important for a number of reasons, the first of which being the time of year that it is held. It is right after midterms, so people are stressed out,” Pierce said. “Having a school event that is sponsored by the school, where there is free food and you can just come and chill out for a couple hours is a really great thing, and it’s also a very safe place for our dual- enrollment students who are also welcome here- we of course have police protection and everything else. It offers a good release and a really fun couple of hours for every student on campus [that attends]”
This year, the activities of the event included dancing, musical chairs, a costume contest, and a murder mystery, all of which were parts of the theme, ‘Descent into Madness.’
The music was a range of ‘spooky’ tunes such as The Addam’s Family theme, “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” by Blue Oyster Cult, and “This is Halloween,” from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas to popular songs such as “Talk Dirty,” by Jason Derulo and “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede.
There were also clips from black-and-white horror films showing on a projector in the background to add to the ‘spooky’ atmosphere of the dark room, plastic and clay body parts on the tables and cobwebs lining the building.
“I am a gender-bent version of Alex from A Clockwork Orange,” Pierce said. “It resonates with our theme, which is ‘Descent into Madness.’ What we decided we were going to do for this year is take serial killers with different specific quirks… we have Hannibal Lecter, we have Norman Bates and a few others, and we kind of tried to incorporate that and use our characters in our murder mystery as well so, that turned out pretty well.”
The 45 or so people that attended the ball were all dancing, singing and having fun, and although not as many people showed up for the event as previous years, everyone that did attend seemed to be genuinely enjoy themselves and the activities that took place- especially the murder mystery and musical chairs.
“There were some pretty interesting costumes in there,” first time attendee Justin Morgan, who dressed up as Heath Ledger’s version of The Joker said. “There were a decent amount of people in there, there was good food, a lot of drinks, and just a lot of people having fun.”
Chyanne Hill, a dual-enrollment student and psychology major who attended was dressed as Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde won second place in the ‘singles’ category of the costume contest.
Hill has attended the event for two years, and the Fall Ball is, in Hill’s words, “a way to dress up and have fun in a clean environment…without [people] judging [each other].”
The Fall Ball is an event in which students can have fun and hang out with each other, and the event means a lot to a few people, Pierce included.
“I’m glad we can throw this event and make people happy,” Pierce said. “Nothing makes me happier throughout the year than when I have students come up to me and say ‘Hey Ciara, please tell me you guys are having the Fall Ball again next year, because this year was so much fun!’ it just makes me happy to hear people say that and how much they enjoy it.”
CF students who could not attend this year should not worry though, because Pierce and the rest of the PANTS club plan on keeping the tradition alive for a long time, and Pierce even stated that when she transfers colleges next year, she will come back because “it’s an event that’s very dear to [her]” as well as many other students who have had the opportunity to attend.
By: Ambrozia Barth
The Patriot Press 