A record setting number of people will be attending this year’s Order of the Knoll celebration on Friday.

The Order of the Knoll, a top ISU donor recognition group that was started in 1968, currently has 3,000 members.

The annual meeting will be held in State Gym, and nearly 575 Iowa State donors will attend, said Geni Greiner, student foundation advisor.

Greiner said State Gym was chosen because of it’s historic appeal. The gym was transformed this week with the addition of a disco ball and velvet curtains, and with a semi truck parked outside to pipe in cool air.

Activities during this year’s celebration will include committee meetings, educational sessions and tours of the campus before the ’40s-’50s-’60s vintage dinner at 6:30 p.m., Greiner said.

The ISU Foundation has organized a variety of activities for the donors, including an act where ISU President Martin Jischke will be beamed down onto the stage.

Greiner said an orchestra called Synergy will play ’40s and ’50s music, and speakers representing each of the decades will be featured throughout the evening as additional entertainment.

Julie Anderson, professor emerita and former associate dean of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, will speak about the ’40s era; Gary Thompson, a former ISU basketball standout and Ames businessman, will represent the ’50s; and Alan and Myrna Tubbs, both 1960s graduates of ISU, will speak about the ’60s.

“We looked at the audience and determined their interests,” Greiner said of the theme. “[We wanted] to give them something really unique.”

ISU graduates also are among the people involved in organizing this year’s activities.

Mark Thomson, a 1983 graduate of ISU, is helping in the production of “Business Theater: Theatrical Productions for Business.”

“[The production] will bring some new technology and ideas and production management [to ISU],” Thomson said.

Four awards will be given at the annual awards ceremony this year, compared to the three awards that were awarded in previous years, said Dalene Abner, director of public relations for the ISU Foundation.

She said the new award is the Young Alumni Award, and the three traditional awards are the Cardinal and Gold Award, the Corporate Foundation Award and the Cardinal Award.

Thomson said the donors are very deserving of the honors bestowed upon them.

“Iowa State University has more loyalty than any other school,” Thomson said. “It’s incredible to see that level of commitment.”