In lieu of ISU’s Homecoming celebration, the greek community is holding its annual lawn display competition and public display. This year, the competition and display involves eight sorority-fraternity pairings all vying to claim the title of the ‘overall’ winner of the greek system’s Homecoming festivities.

“Each pairing has from Sept. 1 to Oct. 11 to build their display depicting the Homecoming theme, ‘Catch the Cyclone Craze,'” said Chrissy Pettit, co-coordinator of displays.

Pettit, sophomore in pre-advertising, said each display is judged on the following criteria: Overall appearance, design creativity/ originality, craftsmanship, compliance with the Homecoming theme and presentation of the display.

Official judging will take place at 1 p.m. Friday.

A community tour will begin at 3 p.m. Saturday. Participants will have the opportunity to cast their vote for the “People’s Choice” Award.

It takes a lot of hard work to get to the finished product, however.

Shawn Scott, member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, 140 Lynn Ave., said a lot of time and effort goes into constructing the display.

“There’s a lot of meetings, constructing, and getting materials involved, so you stay really busy,” Scott said. “People usually put in over six hours a day. There was one night when I put in 10.”

Megan Petersen, senior in accounting and member of Kappa Delta, 2102 Sunset Drive, said “time management” plays a huge role in construction of lawn displays.

“It’s just one more activity, which is difficult because a lot of classes are testing right now,” Petersen said.

Scott said the biggest challenge is “keeping everyone in line.”

Genevieve Ramsay, vice president/public relations of Kappa Delta, said that the challenge of building the spirit displays really gives people the chance of self-discovery.

“It’s about pushing yourself beyond your limits,” said Ramsay, junior in early childhood education. “It really gives you a great chance to test your abilities to find out if you could do more than you thought you could. It makes you confident in your abilities.”

But lawn displays are not all fun and self-discovery.

Nicolle Stumpf, co-coordinator for displays, said vandalism has occurred.

“There were two cases at the beginning, and unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Stumpf, junior in apparel merchandising, design and production. “More than likely it’s just people coming home from the bars late at night.”