After a controversial year of change, Veishea ’99: “Building the Future,” with its cherry pies, parade and entertainment events, is ready to be enjoyed by the Cyclone Family.

More than 500 students are organizing and participating in this year’s celebration, which is, for the second year in a row, alcohol free.

Iowa State President Martin Jischke said in a previous Daily article that he was looking forward to this year’s Veishea, and although he realizes not everybody wants it to be alcohol free, at this time it is necessary.

“It’s quite clear to me that we enjoy a great deal of support from the community for the changes we have made in Veishea,” he said.

Veishea Central Committee Co-Chairs Scott DeSotel and Aimee Lee said they want to increase student participation in this year’s celebration.

DeSotel noted that much was learned from last year’s pilot dry Veishea.

“Last year was an educational year,” said DeSotel, senior in agricultural business.

Lee said committee members have worked hard to make sure this year’s Veishea will be an improvement.

“At the end of the year, we evaluate Veishea so we can preserve the tradition and improve it,” said Lee, senior in public service and administration for agriculture. “When [we] went around to the five student groups about taking the pledge, some said it was boring last year and so many students left town.”

DeSotel said Veishea committee members then talked to students to figure out what they would like Veishea to be.

“We try to get as much input from the students as possible because we are a student-run organization, and we want to take care of our own,” he said.

DeSotel said some of the celebration’s events this year, such as Veishea Center Stage headlining bands Goo Goo Dolls and The New Radicals, definitely will be more appealing to ISU students.

“As far as entertainment goes, we tailored that to the students, and we feel we brought in a lot better acts than last year,” he said.

Student ideas are crucial to the planning process to keep Veishea “evolving in the right direction,” he said.

Vice President for Student Affairs Thomas Hill noted that Veishea has changed this year in some respects, including students being allowed to bring one guest to events such as Dew the Rec and Veishea Center Stage.

Hill said such policy changes are helping to define the new Veishea.

“Veishea is changing; Iowa State is changing,” he said. “We can’t construct a Veishea today that is going to have all the ingredients it needs 20 years from now.”

A pro-active approach is to build a “tradition that will accommodate change,” Hill said.

Hill said he wants students to approach this year’s celebration with an open mind and not just see Veishea as a time to be alcohol free.

“Veishea provides us an opportunity to show students, the state of Iowa, this country, that young people can have a good time without alcohol,” he said.

DeSotel said committee members are optimistic about Veishea ’99.

“We can’t make people have fun,” he said. “We just want them to go out there and participate, try it out and then give us their opinions.”