USU street painting tradition promotes homecoming spirit

 By Mark Rosa  10/2/15 

Forty Utah State University organizations met at the corner of Aggie Boulevard and 800 East on Tuesday for the annual homecoming week street painting event. This year the Utah State University Student Association traditions committee appointed a panel of judges to grade the groups' paintings and hand out three new awards.

Clubs, organizations, sports teams, sororities and fraternities displayed their artistic skills and created street murals depicting the spirit of their groups and USU.

“In the past it’s been kind of like are we doing judging, or are we not doing judging?” said Stephanie Brooksby, the faculty program coordinator of the street painting event. “But this year it was like we are doing judging, we have judges set up, we have three new awards that they’re going to be judged on.”

The paintings were judged on individual criteria for each of the three new awards: the Aggie Spirit award, the Aggie Creative award and the Go Blue or Go Home award.

The Aggie Spirit award was presented to the Dominican Student Association for the depiction of the students’ process of coming to America and the university. Brooksby said the judges chose the DSA’s painting because it told a great story.

The Aggie Climbing Club took the Aggie Creative award for turning its 10 feet by 10 feet square into the side of a mountain with a climber scaling the face.

The top award of the night was the Go Blue or Go Home award, which shared its name with the 2015 homecoming week theme. The award was given to the Kappa Delta sorority for best exemplifying the overall spirit of the week. The sorority’s mural included the “Block A” on which, students stand and kiss on True Aggie Night and a constellation spelling out “Go Blue or Go Home” and “K.D.” for Kappa Delta.

The USUSA Traditions committee is in charge of putting on four main events a year including homecoming. The goal of the committee is to get new students excited about long-standing university traditions and spread the spirit of tradition throughout campus.

“I think that’s one of the best parts of being a traditions director is just bringing back the traditions that make us Aggies so unique,” said Alexander Aburto, the USUSA traditions director and coordinator of the street painting event.