“Veishea is tradition, Veishea is unity, Veishea is community” – these words form the beginning of a two minute video about the more than 90-year-old tradition at Iowa State. It explains what Veishea is and why it is the best university tradition anywhere.

Now, the video is among the top five entries for the 2014 “Your Best Campus Tradition” competition, hosted by the National Association for Campus Activities.

“We were pretty ecstatic when we found out that we’re in the top 5,” said Katie Hansen, senior in journalism and mass communication and public relations executive for Veishea. “It’s just kind of a weight off your shoulder and I couldn’t stop smiling for a couple of days.”

Hansen and two other ISU students made the video after they were approached by a National Association for Campus Activities member, who suggested that they should represent the Veishea tradition in the competition.

“The main thing to gain from this competition is really recognition. It is to increase the exposure of Veishea on more of a broad basis outside of just Iowa and have other people know what it’s about,” Hansen said.

Together with Kyle Steingreaber, senior in history and general manager of ISUtv, Hansen went through 30 or 40 GBs of old Veishea video catalogued at ISUtv.

“Our first idea was to e-mail the Iowa Nice Guy of ESPN and see if he’d do it, but because of contractual reasons with ESPN he couldn’t do that,” Steingreaber said.

Instead, Steingreaber said they wanted to go with an informative but also entertaining approach. For that, he and Hansen approached Christopher Cox, senior in public relations and online director at ISUtv, who provided voice overs and acted as narrator of the video.

“I like being the center of attention, that’s why I immediately agreed to do this,” Cox said. “I’m not really shy in front of the camera, so I’ve been able to do stuff like that before.”

While shooting the video, Steingreaber said they ran into some time problems as the deadline for the competition approached over Fall Break. 

“We probably spent a little more time in the planning stage than we should have,” Steingreaber said. “We talked a lot about putting it together, but we never actually put it together.”

On the Monday after Fall Break, the due date for the competition, Steingreaber said that he and Cox had to reshoot a couple of scenes, so they ended up rushing from location to location.

“It was extremely stressful and Katie texted me ferociously, but it was also really exciting,” Steingreaber said. “And in the end, I think it turned out great.”

Hansen said she is very happy with the result as it represents Veishea very well and explains it to people, who have never heard of the tradition.

“The other videos in the top five are really well made and I applaud them for that,” Hansen said. “But they revolve around one or two day events, while we have a week-long tradition to represent, which is far more impressive, I think.”

The result of the competition will be announced on Feb. 14. Only National Association for Campus Activities members and faculty advisors are allowed to vote, “so I hope our video stands out to them,” Hansen said.

The winner will be awarded with $1,000, which would directly go into the Veishea budget, Hansen said.

“I’m very passionate about Veishea. It’s all about community and reflects Iowa State in various aspects,” Hansen said. “There’s so many things people can do at Veishea, there’s something for everyone and I think our video reflects that really well.”

Cox said that this year is going to be his last Veishea, so he plans on doing things he hasn’t done last year.

“I will go to as many events as I can, eat as much food as I can and hopefully I can announce the parade again this year, because it was so much fun last year,” Cox said.