Students walked around from booth to booth and were able to learn about sustainability and different environmental issues. 

“The weather has a big thing to do with Earth Day, you know the earth, there’s weather all over the globe and our weather is changing because our Earth is changing,” Sam Taylor, president of White Squirrel Weather, said.

Through some local businesses, participants could make a bouquet of flowers or pick up a potted plant. A WKU oceanography class presented their research at the event, and one group tackled coral bleaching. 

“When they’re [coral] stressed by changes in conditions such as increased temperature, lying or nutrients they expel their symbiotic algae living in their tissues, which gives them their color that causes them to turn completely white, leaving them more susceptible to diseases,”Mackenzie Senig, a student researcher, said. 

Senig also demonstrated how coral bleaching works with a sponge and food coloring, which showed how the color bleeds from coral due to bleaching. 

Along with educational booths, there were food trucks and animals, which are typically found at the event every year.

“Everybody likes to come visit the alpacas, it’s always a good environment,” Shawna Gilbert, owner of Happy Herd Farm, said.

News Reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu.

Students should expect to see tabling from different student organizations, including the WKU Water Pros, Ecology and Conservation Club, Graduate Student Association, American Conservation Coalition (ACC), Geology Club and White Squirrel Weather. 

Some local businesses that will be in attendance include the Community Farmer’s Market, Atmos Energy, Banjo Bakes, the Warren County Public Library and BikeWalkBG. 

“Earth Day is important for many reasons, it is a day dedicated to celebrating the planet we live on and the environments we are surrounded by,” Hannah Herman, a master’s geoscience student and organizer of the event said. “It provides a day to reflect on our relationship with the earth.”

Food trucks will also be in attendance of the celebration, the set-up will be similar to Market on the Avenue. Students can use their meal plan dollars to buy menu items.

“I think holding an Earth Day event is also very valuable because it provides our local community to see how our campus and surrounding community interacts with our environment,” Herman said. “It provides an opportunity to share with and teach each other.”

Anyone interested in tabling or volunteering at the event can reach out to hannah.herrmann165@topper.wku.edu.

News Reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu

“I can’t tell you what jobs will be there when you’re out of college,” Elizabeth Joyce, the assistant director of programming said.“There’s jobs being created all the time but if you’re a creative thinker, critical thinker, you work well with other people, and you can communicate, it doesn’t matter what they tell you – you will find that job. ”

The reasoning behind the creation of IdeaFestival was  to show that there is more out there for students than just the typical jobs they have heard about and has been designed to inspire. 

From 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. middle and high school students attended a series of speaker sessions in Van Meter Hall. This year, five individuals shared their stories of success to students. This may not be the stereotypical route to success that students have heard of in the past. 

John Mittel, a University of Louisville Medical School graduate, put off his residency because he developed caffeinated water, called Phocus and has since partnered with Jack Harlow. 

Kesi Neblett is a Gatton Academy student who went on to graduate from Columbia University as a division one volleyball captain and computer science major. She went on to star in Netflix’s newest reality TV show, “The Mole”. 

“The idea to me is to let the kids see what’s out there and what’s possible,” Joyce said. “You may think you’re going to be a doctor. But suddenly, you take this complete pivot, and that’s how you’re like doing caffeinated water. And it’s okay, it’s okay to say I put…four very expensive years into medicine and I’ve decided I’m not going to do that either. I like for them to hear about the journey, to see what’s possible.”

“They [the speakers] gave us insight on leadership and how good ideas have impacted their lives,” Brady Glen, a sophomore from Marshall County said. “We got to listen to that and it’s very motivating.” 

Andee Rudloff, an artist based in Nashville has attended the event for the past 11 years. She created a large black and white mural for students to paint, the only rule is to never have the same color touching. She is going to donate the mural that is created to one of the schools that attends the event, as a reminder that anything is possible. 

“What this process does, I truly believe, is ignites your creative confidence,” Rudloff said.  “Too many people lose that creative confidence. They feel like ‘I can’t paint, I can’t draw’ and here, everybody can put a little bit on and be part of creating a mural.”

Other activities that students could partake in included a 3D printing lab, coding and designing, AI robotics data, creating solar eclipse glasses, exploring virtual reality, medical exploration, stop motion and ozobot coding, learning to use weather instruments, and much more.

Keith Philips, a professor from WKU’s biology department, has been attending the festival for three years. His station allowed students to explore and learn more about the insects that inhabit the earth. He brought an extensive collection of insects for students to inspect, most of the bugs he collected himself through his travels. 

Philips enjoys interacting with the students who come by his station and teaching them “all the cool things about bugs.”

“It’s helping a lot of young people find fun stuff that they want to do,” Jett Seidal,  a sophomore from Marshall County said. “It’s helping (future) leaders come into their positions better, and it’s really cool that they’re doing stuff like this.”

Not only does this event inspire students regarding future job opportunities but it also introduces them to WKU’s campus. 

“Just kind of look around, I mean, we’re all close to this area so this might be a college we attend,” Glen said. “So it’s cool to be here and get to see everything.” 

News Reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu

Dozens of WKU students interested in joining a Divine Nine organization gathered in DSU on Thursday to learn more about the different organizations and their rush process.

To start out the Greek 101 session, the group played a round of Kahoot. The questions ranged from WKU NPHC facts to National NPHC facts. Amelia Kolb, assistant director of student activities, also addressed the difference between strolling and stepping. 

“Stepping is more like rhythmic stomping and clapping and strolling is more of that staying in a line, uniform dances,” Kolb said. “NPHC life is more than stepping and strolling, that’s something that we want to emphasize as well. Of course it is a fun part of fraternity and sorority life but it is much more than that.” 

The Divine Nine are tight knit groups of like-minded individuals. This is largely due to their selective rush process, which looks very different from traditional Greek rush. 

Potential new members will attend sessions with their desired fraternity or sorority. PNMs are not required to attend every session, just the ones they are interested in. It is recommended that PNMs do background research on each organization before attending their session. Once accepted by an organization, PNMs must keep it secret from their friends and family until Probate.

“Probate is different for every organization, but the new members who are kind of coming out to the community are going to come in usually with something that is hiding their face and who they are,” Kolb said, “The new members will come out one at a time, they will kind of show their face and their name. They might do a series of performances or shout out their fraternity or sorority history of the organization that they have joined, to show the community ‘I’m in this organization and I know the history.’” 

The tight-knit ness of these organizations are also due to the smaller chapter sizes and the amount of time that they spend with their organization. 

“For somebody that is new and interested in joining, they don’t understand that sometimes it can be a lifestyle,” Avery Wells, community service chair, said. “My biggest recommendation is to look at your schedule and really think about who you are as a person and what’s your strong areas and what’s you areas of growth. If you can truly dedicate 20, 30, even sometimes 40 hours a week.”  

NPHC is very involved with philanthropic work. They are constantly raising money or collecting donations for places in the community that have need. When joining these organizations, one can expect to join in on highway clean-ups or work with schools in the community. 

“It’s called the Adapt School Program, basically what we do is just go out to the school and we’re mentoring the kids we’re aiding in different life lessons before they go to their regularly scheduled classes,” Isaak Kidd, the Chaplain, said. “You’re aiding them and teaching them everything about life so that way, when the time comes, they can use the things that they’ve been taught and apply it.” 

Joining an NPHC organization is a life-long commitment. Alumni are still very much involved in their organization and it is much more common to have more Alumni initiates.

“Not only are we ininiating people in college and then having them pursue active membership after college, but we are initiating and actively recruiting people after college to come and join our organization as professional individuals,” Wells said. 

Those interested in joining an NPHC organization must attend a Greek 101 session. There are two more sessions available this semester, one on Jan. 29 at 4:30 p.m. and the next on Feb. 6 at 5:00 p.m. in DSU 2123. 

News Reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu

Donte Reed, a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, has been working with the local Boys and Girls club since September. He came up with the idea of hosting a haunted house after meeting associated dental professor Ronald Singer at the University of Kentucky. 

Reed attended a program where Singer showed videos of “Moeller Manor,” a haunted house in Southern California. Thousands of people attended this haunted house and it inspired Reed to host something similar. 

“You can just see the kids faces just lighting up,” Reed said about the Moellar Manor video, “That made me want to do that on a campus scale with these kids that I just have gained relationship with.” 

Reed invited Alpha Xi Delta and Alpha Kappa Alpha to join his fraternity in hosting this event. Alpha Xi Delta’s philanthropy is the Boys and Girls Club and Reed decided to invite Alpha Kappa Alpha to join because he had seen how active they are in the community. 

“I’m excited about just collaborating honestly with Sig Ep and AXiD, because both are very large organizations…”  Dasia Finch, senior Alpha Kappa Alpha member said. “I think it’s important for Greek unity, for all of us to come together in this create that bond with each other.” 

The members of the Boys and Girls club will be grouped up by age and lead through the fraternity house. The event as a whole will include carnival games and a trunk or treat, in addition to the haunted house. 

“We’re gonna have people acting like you would in a typical haunted house,” Olivia Masden senior Alpha Xi Delta member said. “(The) groups will come in and I guess it’ll gradually get a little bit more scary (as the age groups increase), but it won’t be anything too bad.” 

Once kids are through the haunted house they will be taken upstairs to decorate their own paper bags for the trunk or treat before being led to the back parking lot. There will be cornhole, musical chairs and other carnival games.  

“They’ll come out back at the end and we have a (Michael Jackson) Thriller dance planned for them, (with) about 30 people participating in this dance,” Reed said. “After the Thriller dance is over, they will be doing a trunk or treat with the cars that we have parked behind our chapter house free of charge, and they’ll be going back to the Boys and Girls Club around six o’clock when they normally would end their day there.”

According to Reed, the Boys and Girls club members have been looking forward to this event along with members of Greek life that are participating in the event. 

“It (will be) exciting to see the kids reactions and how they react to this event,” Reed said. “I know a lot of them have said they’ve never been to the haunted house before, so I want to see that firsthand.”

News Reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isable.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu

“It’s been a big tradition in the chapter in the community,” Jakob Briggs, Phi Beta Sigma member said. “We’re getting people, students, organizations to come out and [donate] hygiene products, canned goods. Just sleeping out for to bring awareness to homelessness in our community.”

Martha Sales, WKU dean of students, Pastor John Lee of Mount Zion Baptist Church and social work professor Jay Gabbard were guest speakers throughout the night. 

“We’re going to listen to them (the guest speakers) and just learn more about this cause,” Hayley English, a sophmore Alpha Xi Delta member, said.

English and her sisters of Alpha Xi Delta gathered around a table talking and working on homework while their other sisters set up the tents they would be sleeping in. Participants brought blankets, sleeping bags and air mattresses to sleep. 

Jess Lee, senior Alpha Xi Delta member, participated in the sleepout for the homeless event last year. 

“It was a little bit cold overnight but it was good,” Lee said of her experience. 

Phi Beta Sigma expected around 200 people to sleep out on South Lawn from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Throughout the night, the campers created goody bags for the homeless with the donations that Phi Beta Sigma received.

“I think there’s gonna be a pretty big turnout, even bigger than last year,” Michael Diug, sophomore, said. “We have a lot of organizations that are really interested, and intrigued in what we do, and the good work that we do around here. It’s one of the greatest events, it’s something that you don’t really see around campus or really anywhere. It is really something to bring the community together.”

News Reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu

Stevens dropped out of WKU and began learning to brew in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After perfecting the craft, he moved back to Bowling Green in 2015 and opened up the original White Squirrel Brewery on Broadway Avenue. 

“It was a small building. We had a kitchen (and) a little bit of brewing system, we had to brew in the middle of the night because we didn’t have any room to grow,” Stevens said.  “We had to move the kitchen out of the way, move the brewery in at night and I brew all night.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the brewery went down. In 2021, a mutual friend introduced Mefford, Vice President of VETRO Fiber Strategy, a broadband network company, and Stevens to one another. The pair hit it off and planned to reopen the White Squirrel Brewery together.

The brewery celebrated its grand reopening on Saturday, Sept. 23, with a day of beer, music and entertainment for the community. 

“We have basically four venues under one roof,” Mefford said. “We have a special events room,  a bar slash pub, a traditional brewery space, and a music venue in the back. We also have an outdoor space, a beer garden, in the very back.”

The White Squirrel Brewery is a family-friendly establishment that will offer trivia on Thursdays and live music on Fridays and Saturdays. 

“I don’t care if you’re 12 or 92 … we want it to be Bowling Green’s living room,” Stevens said.  “We want anyone and everyone in here, bring your kids in, bring your dogs in.” 

Some of White Squirrel’s signature brews include a Jalapeno Kolsch, a Nut Brown Ale and a Pale Ale. The process to create these drinks takes around two weeks, bringing grain to glass. White Squirrel Brewery provides eight different handcrafted beers to its customers. 

White Squirrel Brewery is located in downtown Bowling Green at 302 State Street. The brewery is open 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Fridays, 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. on Saturdays and 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays. 

News Reporter Izzzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu

The old State Street High School gymnasium is planned to turn into a speakeasy featuring live jazz music and small plates, and WKU Interior Design students have been asked to design the space.

Derrick Huff and his wife, the owners of Traveler’s Cellar Winery, purchased the old highschool gym area with plans to turn the upstairs into a wine bar and brunch and lunch spot, as well as a venue. The downstairs will be a speakeasy with a cigar lounge located in the back. 

“It’s all going to be under the name, ‘the Mustang Club’, paying homage to the mascot of the two schools that used the space,” Huff said. 

Speakeasies came about during 1920s prohibition, when alcohol was illegal. Consumers were forced underground into secret bars that required a knock or a code to enter. 

“A lot of the larger cities have these speakeasy bars where you’re kind of transported to a different time, a different era, different sounds, different tastes, and that sort of thing,” Huff said. “That’s what we’re trying to capture downstairs.”

While working with one of the professors in the WKU hospitality management department, Huff heard about professor Sheila Flener’s interior design class. In the past, Flener had assigned students a project where they must pick a rock and roll song and design a bar based off of it.

“I had a student who chose Debbie Harry’s ‘Heart of Glass.’ When he got done with it, he posted it on Tik Tok and Debbie Harry got on and [commented] ‘This is really cool,’”  Flener said. 

This project is supposed to replicate real world experience for students, but this semester, 40 students have the opportunity to design the real deal. 

“I knew we’d receive much more interesting ideas from the students rather than going to an interior designer in town. We’re going to be able to capture so many different ideas,” Huff said. 

As a thank you to the students, Huff will be giving away cash prizes to the top three teams. The 40 students in the class have been divided into four teams of 10. The first place team will receive $500, the second will receive $300 and the third place team will be given $100. 

“The great thing about this partnership is it gets them something that they can put on their resume, something that they had influence on. Or was the winning project [team] on a real world project that’s going to be completed before the end of the spring semester,” Huff said. 

Huff has given students free range with ideas and their designs, although they were informed of his preference for the Art Deco style. 

“Basically, we’ve just kind of drawn a mood board … We’re at the point of picking furniture and in a couple of weeks we’ll have rendered drawings done and rendered floor plans, stuff like that,” Maggie Jones, interior design student in the class said. 

The Mustang Club is designed to be an upscale date-night venue. It will be 21 years and up and will also have a dress code. 

“It’ll offer something that’s pretty unique that we don’t have in Bowling Green … I think it’s an itch that needs to be scratched, ” Huff said. “It’s been really great partnering with the interior design program at WKU and we’re excited to see what they come up with.”

News Reporter Izzzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu

Delta Omicron is a co-ed fraternity made up of less than 20 members that are WKU music majors and minors. They will be performing Broadway hits from their favorite musicals. 

“It’s nice to be able to share the music we may find expressive of a range of emotions, whether the pieces be powerful, silly, or fun and make the audience smile,” Cassie Barrett, a new member of the organization, said. 

Delta Omicron hosts a musicale every academic semester. Planning an event like this starts with choosing a theme. After the theme is chosen, a date is picked, music is chosen and rehearsals begin. 

This performance will be the first time that the whole fraternity will perform a piece together as a whole. 

“Personally, I’m most excited about playing in the musicale for the first time and hearing the range of pieces our members have chosen,” Barrett said.

News reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu.

Mará Rose Williams, assistant managing editor for race & equity issues at the Kansas City Star, Kyndell Harkness, assistant managing editor of diversity/community at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Rochelle Ritchie, a media and crisis communications expert and writer, were the three reporters that offered their insight. The journalists are women of color and discussed how they have started change within their organizations.

The speakers focused on how news organizations changed after the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed. They discussed the importance of a minority perspective. 

“We can’t just cover, we have to listen,” Ritchie said. “The reason why black communities are not being covered in the way that they should be is because people are not listening.”

For years, these reporters were not only the only women of color within their organization but also the only people of color. During the protests, they had to make their voices heard.

“We had to make some choices,” Harkness said. “I’m the only person of color in that room and so my voice was important.”

It was important to show the diversity within the protests and riots. The speakers discussed how stereotypically, when people think of looting, they only think of people of color, but that was not the case during the riots. 

“As the protests were multicultural, so was the looting,” Harkness said. “So, it was important that that was shown.”

Williams also reflected on her time reporting on the protest. 

“I realized that what I saw was people of any age, people of every hue, people from every economic background, all people from all different places in one place with one common cause saying stop police brutality,” Williams said.

Adi Schanie, a sophomore, asked about how the reporters stay “proactive” in finding stories like this that become more than “just another email that every other station is getting.”

In answer, Ritchie spoke of the importance of investigative journalism, as being curious and skeptical leads to digging deeper, which is where the stories are. 

“It’s about being curious about the information that people are sharing with us,” Ritchie said. “That’s how you find the topics that nobody else is talking about.”

News reporter Izzy Lanuza can be reached at isabel.lanuza937@topper.wku.edu.