Two years ago, when ISU President Martin Jischke made his “Veishea’s dry or does not fly” ultimatum, he promised support for more activities to compensate for students’ loss of alcohol.

According to the Daily’s account of Jischke’s “Alcohol-free Veishea” speech to GSB on Aug. 27, 1997, “If students choose to take the pledge to make Veishea alcohol-free, Jischke said the university will support their decision by providing additional security and bringing more entertainment to Ames that weekend.”

Since that declaration, students during Rock Veishea have seen such renowned bands as Tonic, The Crystal Method, The Flaming Lips Experiment, Goo Goo Dolls and The New Radicals.

And this year?

Well, there’s a good possibility that Veishea might not have a national band at all this year.

Veishea organizers say there are several factors that made finding a quality band difficult this year. They say not many bands are out touring at this time of year, and they say the fact that they only have one available date makes it tough.

Those sound like very plausible reasons. But they beg the question:

Why didn’t the Veishea Committee start sooner in its hunt for a band?

Sure, maybe there aren’t a lot of bands touring right now. But there are still a whole bunch that do have college appeal, such as Creed, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage and Moby — they’re just not touring here.

If someone had contacted a few of those major bands right after last year’s Veishea, it probably wouldn’t have taken too much arm twisting to get one of them here.

This is Veishea, for crying out loud. One of the largest student-run festivals in the civilized world.

We used to get national bands here all the time. During their heyday, such acts as Count Basie, Diana Ross and Billy Joel all played Veishea.

There has to be some way to still get big-name bands to come to Veishea.

It might be too late for this year. But please, let’s get a move on for next year’s celebration.

Barring some incredible stand against Veishea by GSB (yeah, right), we know right now that next year’s Veishea will be held the weekend of April 20-22. So what’s preventing Veishea 2000 leaders from looking for next year’s band right after this year’s Veishea is over?

No, committee leaders for next year’s celebration haven’t been named yet. But they probably wouldn’t mind the current Entertainment Committee chairs getting the ball rolling.

And if the money isn’t there for a Smashing Pumpkins-type band, don’t forget what Jischke said. He promised support to keep us alcohol-deprived kids happy. Might as well take him up on it.

Let’s just get on the ball.

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Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Sara Ziegler, Greg Jerrett, Kate Kompas, Carrie Tett and David Roepke.