Students representing various organizations banded together to compete at the Minute to Win It competition last week.
Minute to Win It was held on Tuesday, Oct. 22 in Strawberry Stadium.
The Homecoming event, based on the television game show of the same name, was one of the many events included in the Student Government Association sweepstakes competition, sponsored by the Alumni Association and the Division for Student Affairs. The other events included in the competition were Downtown Window Decorating, the Sheet Sign Competition, the Lip-sync Competition and float designs for the homecoming parade. The team that won these events overall was presented with a check for about $1000 at the Homecoming football game.
Minute to Win It started as a Homecoming event that William Takewell, former Homecoming Chair of the SGA, founded in 2011. The event picked for homecoming is chosen by the homecoming chair each year. In years before Minute to Win It, a Fear Factor Competition was held, and last year the Color Run was held instead.
“I remember my first experience of Southeastern Homecoming included Minute to Win It, and I was a contestant in it and thought it was so much fun for everyone participating and watching,” said Samantha Williams, a senior majoring in health education and promotion as well as SGA’s Homecoming Chair for 2013. “I decided when I received the honor to be SGA’s Homecoming Chair this year that I had to bring back  Minute to Win It Competition to Homecoming this year.”
The games played in Minute to Win It were the Oreo-Chin Stack, Chubby Bunny, Tissue Box Shake, Jump Rope Bottle and Spell It. In the Oreo-Chin stack, a team member stacked Oreos on their chin and the last one standing with the most Oreos won. In Marshmallow Stuffed, the team member who stuffed the most marshmallows in their mouth won. The Tissue Box Shake was a timed event where three ping-pong balls were placed in a tissue box and tied on the participants’ waists. The first person to dance and shake all the balls out the fastest won. Jump Rope Bottle was also a timed event where each team member had to jump rope 10 times, run to a table with empty water bottles on it and pluck them down the quickest using only a rubber band. In Spell-It, the first team member to pop all seven letter-filled balloons contained in a trash bag and to spell one of the pre-determined words having to do with Southeastern, won.
The cheers of students who came to enjoy the event resounded throughout the stadium. The event was full of energy and enjoyable for both the watchers and the participants.
“I thought it was really fun,” said Madison Pullen, a junior majoring in communication. “It was interesting and hilarious to see how everyone handled everything and the strategies that they used, and I think that it got everyone really excited for the rest of the week.”
Activities were just as fun for the participants as it was for those in attendance.
“I really enjoyed participating as a freshman in this event,” said Daniel Gruner, a freshman in international business management. “I felt very much part of the community, and I got to see everyone have a great time, come out to support us, and I thought it was a fantastic way for the groups to kind of have it out.”
The winners of Minute to Win It were announced at Gumbo Ya Ya on Wednesday last week. There was a tie for first place between the team consisting of Theta Phi Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Pi Kappa Alpha and Theta Xi, and the team representing Phi Mu and the Kappa Alpha Order. The second place team consisted of Sigma Sigma Sigma, Theta Chi and Tau Kappa Epsilon, and the third place team was a combination of Alpha Sigma Tau and Delta Tau Delta.