Remember the Veishea pledge? The Inter-Fraternity Council, the Panhellenic Council and the Veishea Student Board have already approved. At the time I am writing this, the Government of the Student Body is planning a vote on the pledge for Wednesday night, and the Inter-Residence Hall Association has a vote scheduled for Thursday night. Meanwhile, a high majority of Iowa State students sit around and say, “Who the hell cares?”

For the apathetic crowd, I’ll remind you that the Veishea pledge is a resolution that basically outlaws anyone of any age from drinking alcohol on university owned or affiliated property during Veishea weekend. And for you freshman who may not realize it, this issue was a biggie last year about this time. We’re talking three or four letters to the editor a day about Veishea 12 months ago. It was no parking space debate or public discussion of politicians/professional wrestlers, but take my word for it, it was a big deal.

So the question that looms obvious is why nobody seems to give a damn about Veishea this year. I think the answer is pretty simple. It’s because Veishea sucked last year. Not necessarily the non-alcoholic part, it was just no fun in general.

With its lack of people and strong police presence, Ames looked more like a Cuban city facing the north coast than a college town having a nationally renowned spring celebration.

And I think most students are expecting the same thing out of Veishea this year. And really, there’s no reason not to. The fact is, the elements that college students expect if they’re not going to be drinking are things such as highly-talented musical and comedic entertainment.

This might come as a great shock to you, but it is not very easy to draw highly-talented musical and comedic talent to a small college town in Iowa without lots and lots of time and money, neither of which Iowa State is blessed with.

That’s what was great about having a celebration that revolved around alcohol.

That’s something we can do, something that we know and something that is cheap.

Given these certainties about the difficulty of getting talent in Ames, what should those unfortunate students charged with the enormous challenge of putting on a non-alcoholic Veishea that doesn’t suck do?

I sit on IRHA, and from listening to various student leaders hash out the problems that Veishea faced last year, I can summarize and offer a few ideas.

First of all, the entertainment must get better. People are not going to go see Kevin Nealon again. Really, I swear. They won’t.

Second of all, cut down on the cops, all right? I know we had to have lots of cops last year because we weren’t sure exactly what was going to shake down, but it was just ridiculous. I know that in the residence halls, RCA Security had six officers on duty Thursday, Friday and Saturday and didn’t have a single write-up all weekend. Show a little trust and ease up on the vice grip firmly attached to the collective heads of the ISU student body

Third, what’s with this “Cyclone Family” bullshit? If the purpose of Veishea is to showcase the university as the best land-grant university in the nation, then why do we want to cut down on out-of-town guests? Let ISU students bring their friends to the entertainment venues. Don’t make them show four forms of picture ID just to stay in a friend’s dorm room.

Sure, these outsiders might cause a few problems because they really have nothing at stake with the whole Veishea pledge thing, but if we can’t invite anyone to our party, what’s the point in having it?

That brings me to my final point. If no one stays and no one can come, what’s the point? As far as I am concerned, this is Veishea’s final chance. Pending passage of the pledge by IRHA and GSB (both should be approved this week, next week at the latest), the Veishea committee is going to have approximately five months to put together the celebration.

If they can’t throw together a party that keeps people sober, entertained and in Ames, then I think it’s time to scrap Veishea.

It would be painful to see the 76 year-old student run celebration shoved down the tubes, but if we can’t pull it off this time, I think the conclusion should be apparent. Everything dies eventually. Hell, even the Roman Empire only lasted for so long.

It may be depressing to think you cannot successfully turn one of the nation’s biggest drunken orgies into a soberfest, but it’s a truth that we might have to face sometime in the near future.

So good luck to the Veishea committee. I hope you prove me wrong.

---

David Roepke is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Aurora.