Features
FebFest Defrosts Campus
By Sophie Gaulkin ’17
February 20, 2015
Hamilton’s much-loved tradition of FebFest, which lasts the full week before Valentine’s Day (Feb. 7-14 this year), provides the campus with frequent and varied activities and events, ranging from beer tasting to figure skating shows to card-making and so much more. Starting as just an annual winter carnival almost a century ago, FebFest has evolved from year to year, this time with the most events in its 90 year history.
In 1925, what is now known as FebFest was just a winter carnival and a hope: to become a seasonal tradition to brighten up the dreariest time of the year. Ice sculpture contests, dance parties and a final formal event featuring jazz legends Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller made up the original winter carnival. Similar to now, the early stages of the winter carnival held figure skating exhibitions and a queen of the carnival contest (now the Mr. Hamilton competition).
This week of events remained a popular tradition until it gradually lost steam and faded out in the mid-1950s. It was only in 2000 when the idea of a winter carnival was brought back, but with a new name: FebFest.
The Social Traditions Committee of Student Assembly and the Womyn’s Center presented this year’s FebFest. Evelyn Torsher ’17, the class of 2017 treasurer and the co-chair of the Social Traditions Committee, commented, “[FebFest] took a lot of planning but this year we have more events than ever before, and it is completely free, which is relatively new (four or five years ago people had to pay to go to FebFest events).”
Hal Shimkoski ’16 agreed, saying, “It’s really great to see how inclusive FebFest is for everyone. Almost everything was free, and even events like Jay Pharoah’s stand-up performace was only five dollars.”
For first-years who have no basis for comparison from past years of FebFests, the general satisfaction of the week still holds. Alexis Stroemer ’18, a January admit, commented, “[FebFest] is nice because I’m only a month into my college experience, and I already felt like I needed a nice spirit-lifter. I can definitely see why it’s so popular and why there was so much anticipation for this week.”
For some students, this year was the first time they were motivated enough to attend an event. Colby Atkins ’16 admitted, “I have never been to a FebFest event until now. The free hot chocolate was a really nice touch.”
Others tried their best to take advantage of all that FebFest had to offer. Meg Riley ’17 stated, “There are so many events that it’s so difficult to pick and choose which ones I want to go to!” She continued, “There are a lot of different organizations represented, especially a lot of smaller organizations, which is nice.”
The work of Torsher ’17 and others involved in executing FebFest clearly paid off. Torsher, who identified “coordinating all of the various clubs, groups and organizations to work together in hosting events” as one of the biggest challenges of planning the full week of events and activities, later explained how “that collaboration is one of the things that makes FebFest so special.”
Cesar Renero ’17, the co-founder, treasurer and self-proclaimed “toast-master” of the Hamilton Fine Dining Society, expressed his appreciation for the Social Tradition Committee’s decision to include a cheese tasting as part of the FebFest festivities. He stated, “We are thankful for having had the opportunity to showcase our club’s foremost paramour: cheese. We also enjoyed the budget we received for FebFest.”
The FebFest tradition carried on this year, arguably bigger and better than it has been in the past, with something for everyone in the dozens of events and activities provided for the Hamilton community. With such clear and distinct improvements from previous years and demonstrated appreciation from students, it can only be predicted that FebFest will continue to improve in the years to come.