Veishea leaders say they aren’t worried about a repeat of Thursday night’s riot on campus at this year’s celebration, and they say it has not affected plans for Veishea ’99.

Aimee Lee and Scott DeSotel, co-chairs of the Veishea Central Committee, said they were both at Thursday night’s riot and felt it had little to do with Veishea plans, despite vocal protests from some students.

“One of the things we found out after asking people in the group why they were there is a lot of them didn’t know,” said DeSotel, senior in agricultural business.

DeSotel agreed with Iowa State President Martin Jischke and other university officials, calling Thursday’s incident a case of “spring fever.”

“It wasn’t totally related to Veishea and the alcohol-free issues,” he said.

Lee, senior in public service and administration in agriculture, said university officials weren’t too concerned about the riot being a precursor to Veishea.

Lee said she believes it is a “minority of students” who are displeased with Veishea plans.

“Unfortunately, the people who are upset have the loudest voices,” she said. “We think that’s what happened Thursday night. We talked to people in the crowd, and they didn’t know what was happening.”

The two co-chairs said instead of fretting about the incident, they are going to try and learn from it.

“Veishea doesn’t look at it as a setback,” Lee said. “It just opened our eyes. We know we are going to have to be ready.”

Lee said Veishea officials will be taking a “proactive approach” to this year’s celebration.

“We have 85 peer security officers signed up, and we are beginning to spread the word about alcohol awareness,” she said.

DeSotel said Veishea officials are not thinking of a worst case scenario and wondering what will be the result of another riot, either before or during Veishea.

“We are working to make this Veishea as positive as it can be,” he said. “We know we won’t please everyone, but in getting input from students, we know it will please most of them.”

DeSotel said students upset about a “dry Veishea” have to understand that ISU has never sponsored a Veishea with alcohol. In the past, it was the students who chose to drink.

“Basically, Veishea has always been dry,” he said. “The unofficial Veishea ended last year.”

Both Lee and DeSotel said ISU was put on display last year during Veishea, as universities across the country studied ways to support an alcohol-free event.

“We want students to know we were proud of them [last year],” Lee said. “We want them to know what an accomplishment they made last year.”

Increasing student involvement in Veishea this year is the committee’s main goal, DeSotel said. Planned open houses and advanced ticket sales to some events are helping to increase student numbers, he said.

“We think students are going to come to the events and be happy,” he said. “The events we are planning are parallel to last year, but we think the entertainment is better.”

Lee said she and DeSotel welcome students’ input and opinions, but they want students to go through proper channels.

“We want them to do it in a more productive way,” she said. “Stop by the office; get on our Web site. The way things went Thursday night wasn’t going to solve anything.”