Information Beans: Celebrate Halloween With the Dinosaurs

Amidst the dinosaurs and inflatable slides, Halloween will come a night early for kids at the Vine Community Church.

The church’s lead pastor, Sándor Paull, said the church will use all 36,000 square feet to host a Jurassic-themed Halloween for kids, which will take place from 6 to 9 pm on Friday.

“The plan that we have is to create the dinosaur exhibit—the Smithsonian,” Jennifer Quinn said, the church’s children’s director. “So hopefully to make this place look like a dinosaur has definitely been here.”

Paull said the church is holding the event the night before Halloween so parents can take their kids out for the normal trick-or-treating.

Mike Berardi, an associate pastor overseeing the event, said the event’s controlled environment will be comforting for parents.

“Me being a parent of two kids, I know there seems to be a lot of high school kids that go out and go trick-or-treating,” Berardi said. “So it’s more of a safe alternative for kids.”

Paull said this is the ninth year for the event. Berardi said there were about 500 kids in attendance last year, which he expects to double this year. He said the church sent about 4,000 invitations, including invitations to all local grade schools.

Berardi said as the event gains popularity, the need for volunteers grows. Quinn said there are about 500 volunteers setting up throughout the week and around 150 volunteers for the event itself.

“The church has grown but the event has also grown along with it,” Berardi said. “This is by far the most people that have helped out.”

Paull said the various activities featured at the event include inflatable slides, games, a scavenger hunt, a dunk tank, a bonfire and hay rides.

Quinn said the church started working on ideas in July and has spent a month building sets. Quinn said she was especially excited for a Jurassic-themed inflatable playpen that is 30 feet long, 30 feet wide and 16 feet high.

Berardi said he went to Universal Studios in Florida to research and gather ideas for the event.

“Every kid I’ve ever met loves dinosaurs,” Berardi said. “Because it is a kid’s event and kids like dinosaurs, then we’re just going to have fun with that.”

Quinn said one of the church’s ideas was to build its own dinosaur, which will be about 20 feet long and 12 feet high. To create it, she said they put together a three-dimensional dinosaur jigsaw puzzle, blew up all the individual pieces, cut them out of foam board and put them back together.

Paull said the church even tried to make their own dry ice because smoke machines set off the fire alarms.

“When I heard we’re creating our own machines to make dry ice…I mean, these guys get crazy,” Paull said.

“We love it,” Quinn said. “We love getting different senses and sounds and just making it really memorable for the kids.”

Quinn said the budget for the event was between $3,000 and $4,000. She said about $1,400 was spent on candy and volunteers will bring more.

“We’ve given so much candy away historically that we’ve had to provide discreet ways for parents to give candy back,” Paull said. “So we have redeposit zones for them to dump half of it on their way out.”

Berardi said the event is a great chance for parents to meet new people while their kids play.

“It’s probably assumed that because we’re a church we don’t support the underlying spiritual origination of Halloween,” Berardi said. “So rather than ignore the holiday, I think it’s more important for us to be able use it to develop relationships and friendships.”

Information Beans: Halloween Revived on The Strip

Although the strip is shut down on Halloween, Booby’s will be alive and full of music.

Booby’s will host a Halloween concert this Saturday comprised of popular local bands, including The Black Fortys, Himalayas and Nighty Night. Bat Rider, a band from the United Kingdom, will also be in attendance.

Josh Doyle of Himalayas said the Halloween show at Booby’s last year was such a success that they had to do it again.

“It’s a special show,” he said. “Booby’s is probably going to be the place to be on Halloween.”

Lacy Morris, Booby’s manager, said the venue is not shut down on Halloween because it is both a restaurant and a bar.

Doyle said last year’s show consisted of The Black Fortys and Himalayas, but this year features Nighty Night because of their recent splash onto the Carbondale music scene. David Allen of Nighty Night said the band’s first show was around Thanksgiving in 2008.

The fourth band, Bat Rider, presents a unique addition to the show as a foreign band. Allen said Bat Rider was booked for The Swamp, a local basement venue, but decided to join the Halloween show at Booby’s.

“Somebody talked to Josh (of The Black Fortys) about maybe getting them in on this show because they’re from, you know, a ways away,” Allen said.

David Brown of The Black Fortys said the band should be received well because Carbondale is open to new music.

“People are way less pretentious here than in other places. I think that in a lot of places people…pretend to not be interested,” he said. “They hide their emotions a lot and that doesn’t happen at all in Carbondale. It’s very down to Earth and people are excited to see music and excited to see bands from out of town that they’ve never seen before.”

Allen also said Carbondale music lovers are very receptive of outside bands.

“In Carbondale, a lot of the time, word of mouth just travels that there’s a band from out of town playing,” Allen said. “So people line up at the show to check it out.”

Doyle said members of the three local bands are friends with each other and find common ground through playing music.

“Everybody’s friendly in this area and we hang out a lot. Most of it revolved around music,” he said. “We all love music, talk about music all the time and write our own music and I think that’s really important.”

Brown said the three bands are made up of people who grew up in Southern Illinois, which is why they are such a tight-knit group.

“It doesn’t seem like we’re transient people. You know, when we say, ‘Oh I’m going home this weekend,’ it means, ‘I’m going over to that street,’” he said. “There’s no danger in any of these bands being in town for four years and then taking off.”

Mary Stamper of Nighty Night said her band has been on tour in the past year, but nothing beats playing for the local crowd

“I love playing in Carbondale. Our tour was great, but the show before we left and the show when we got back. It was so exciting to be back in Carbondale because it is very familiar and personal,” she said. “Even though everyone there has seen you 15 or 16 times, they’re still really excited and proud of you.”

Information Beans: Any Student Can Build a Hovercraft

Do not worry if there is a strange machine floating across Thompson Lake, it is probably a hovercraft.

David Allabastro said Hoverclub has made hovercrafts at SIU for 14 years. Allabastro, staff advisor for the club, oversees the construction of hovercrafts.

Allabastro started the club with Gary Butson, a professor in Civil Engineering, as a recruiting tool for high school students. Since they have competed in national competitions and turned the club into a registered student organization.

Butson said the beginning stages were difficult and the club had to learn from its mistakes. He said he taught the basics to newcomers and challenged the experienced eningeering students.

“We wanted them to build a hovercraft that met certain requirements and would qualify us for entry-level racing in the Hoverclub of America,” he said.

According to Allabastro, competitions feature various categories, such as piloting, design and technical innovation. He said SIU has won technical innovation two years in a row and took third place last year at nationals.

“A hovercraft competition is pretty much like an auto competition in the 1920s,” he said. “We will compete with anybody that has a machine. We will see people from pretty much all over the country and in some cases all over the globe.”

SIU participates in the entry-level category of competitions, Allabastro said, which limits them to a 15 horsepower motor. He said their machines can get up to 35 miles an hour on water and 25 miles an hour on land, but some machines at competitions can reach up to 110 miles an hour.

Because the machines are hard to operate, Allabastro said it is difficult keeping pilots.

“A hovercraft flies like a motorcycle on ice. Just because you point it in any given direction doesn’t mean it’s going to go there,” he said. “It takes skill and seat time, just like an airplane, to be able to pilot it properly.”

Allabastro said Hoverclub has been a great recruiting tool. He said they visit high schools, grade schools and community colleges.

“In some cases we’ll go into a grade school,” he said. “We’ll just go in and say, ‘we’re from SIU, isn’t that neat?’ And everyone goes out and watches the hovercrafts.”

David Williams, another staff advisor for Hoverclub, said the hovercraft draws a lot of interest from high school students.

“What’s common to everybody is it goes fast and it makes a lot of noise, and kids like that,” he said. “I’m not sure what the hovercraft’s mystery is, but everybody loves it.”

Allabastro said he believes the club has recruited between 2,000 and 3,000 students to SIU over its tenure.

“The idea of the hovercraft is just getting people interested, in not necessarily the college of engineering but to get people interested in engineering period,” he said.

Mandara Savage, chairman of the SIU Department of Technology, said the club is important for engineering students to get hands-on experience.

“Students actually get down and they cut the metal, they cut the wood, they glue the wood, you know they do all of those things related to building a hovercraft,” he said. “For them it’s a very worthwhile effort because they can see the actual vehicles from beginning to end.”

Williams said the club gives hands-on experience that will help students in the job market.

“If you come to a university and just get a four-year degree, you’ve cut yourself short of the experiences you could’ve had,” he said. “The type of experience you get when you work with something like this, you can’t put a dollar value on it.”

A’capella and Hip-Hop Mix for College Musical

Brandon Williams is ready to premiere a play he has been working on since his sophomore year at SIU.

“The Yard” will run at 8 p.m. on Oct. 18 and 19 at the McLeod Theatre, according to Williams, an SIU graduate from Peoria who studied journalism.

Williams said he had one act done when he graduated and finished the other two over the summer.

“I was sitting around at home and I’m like, ‘well, you know, I’m not doing anything else so why not finish the play and put it on at SIU,’” he said.

Williams said he held auditions during the first week of school. He said around 60 students showed up and he chose around 15 performers.

One of the performers he chose was Cortez Johnson, a junior from Chicago studying theater. Johnson said he has known Williams for years and helped him write the ending.

“With the cast there’s a lot of energy and a lot of potential,” Johnson said. “They came ready to work.”

Williams said the inspiration for mixing a’capella into the play stemmed from his experience with spoken word, where poetry is spoken rather than sung.

“Instead of being confined to a beat like rap is, spoken word is more…like performance poetry,” Williams said. “I called it an a’capella hip-hop musical because we’re rapping but there are no beats to it. It’s more spoken word. It’s interactive.”

Another performer in the play, Lester Hill, a senior from Chicago studying journalism, said Williams made tapes of how he wanted the dialogue to be spoken.

“It was kind of easy to hear yourself while you do it,” Hill said.

Johnson said Williams has his own genre because the play’s dialogue is not rap or singing.

“I call it poetic form because the literature is very rhythmic,” Johnson said.

Williams said the play goes from dialogue to a’capella, which is similar to musicals in how they transition from dialogue to singing. Williams said the performers trade off rhymes when they converse, which will be new to audience members but easy to follow.

“I haven’t seen any spoken word type plays or productions, so I really wanted this to be in its own rank.”

Williams said the play’s tagline, “College: mixing teenage adolescence with adult responsibility,” stemmed from a conversation with a friend.

“He was like, ‘Why does so much crazy things happen at college, like kids doing this stuff or drugs or whatever,’” Williams said.

Williams said the core of the play shows things not promoted through the university but all students’ experience, such as financial trouble, discrepancies with professors, parties, relationships and drug education.

Johnson said it was easy to connect to the play because he is living the college experience. He said he plays Steve Williams in the play, who gives the backdrops of school.

“I show what goes on with finances, what goes on behind the chair of the professor in the classroom and also things students deal with, such issues as boyfriends and girlfriends and social orientation,” Johnson said.

Williams said he wants the play to relate to students and their experience at college.

“I want them to take everything as exactly what they see…because what’s in there is educational information,” he said. “It’s ‘edutainment’ at its finest, education and entertainment.”

Tickets can be purchased at Campus Cuts Barbershop, located at 825 S Illinois Ave.

Information Beans: Kickball Charity Event Helps Fight Disease

Kicking balls and taking names is on the agenda this weekend for participants in Kickballapalooza.

The tournament will take place Saturday at Attucks Park, according to co-director Annie Karayiannis, an SIUC alumnus with a bachelors in industrial design.

Co-director Ron Perry, a West Frankfort native, played in kickball leagues with Annie, which is where they came up with the idea for the event.

“We just had so much fun playing in St. Louis that we had to bring it to the Carbondale area,” he said.

Karayiannis said all proceeds will go to the Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation.

“We decided to put out a tournament to see if people are interested,” she said. “We want to give back to the community and do something for a charity.”

Tim Rochman, a board member of the foundation, said he knows Perry through kickball leagues in St. Louis and was approached about participating in the charity event.

“It’s was nice that everybody came together to help out with it,” Rochman said.

Rochman said his four-year-old daughter Elise has the Tay-sachs disease. He said the disease is a rare and fatal neurological disorder and his daughter has it because she is missing an important enzyme.

James Rochman, Tim’s brother, is part of Blue Sky Vineyards’ team in the event. He said he is always happy to help the fight against Tay-sachs.

“Anytime there’s a fundraiser for (the foundation) we try to show up and support it,” he said. “That’s one of the main reasons I got a team together.”

Karayiannis said other charities have contacted her about hosting benefits. She said she plans to make the event annual and host a different charity each year. She said she also hopes to start a kickball league in the spring.

Perry said the event has drawn many sponsors and support, most notably from Pinch Penny Pub and the Heartland Pediatric Clinic.

Jimmy Karayiannis, manager of Pinch Penny Pub and Copper Dragon Brewing Company, said both bars will have teams in the tournament.

“It just sounds fun and different and out-of-the-normal of regular everyday co-ed softball,” he said. “We’re glad to be part of it.”

Perry said the tournament will start at 9 a.m. and end around 6 p.m. He said there are twelve teams and are split into three pools. He said the top teams from each pool will advance to a single-elimination round. The winning team will receive a trophy, he said.

James Rochman said he has 18 members on his team with ages ranging from 17 to 43. He expects the event to be competitive but fun as well.

“I know there’s going to be two or three teams taking it a little more seriously than probably the rest of the teams,” he said.

Annie Karayiannis said she has been to many kickball tournaments in St. Louis and it is very competitive. She said the atmosphere in Carbondale should be less aggressive.

“I think it will be a good time overall, just playing kickball, having fun and hanging out with friends,” she said.

For more information about the spring kickball league, visit www.sikickball.com.

Infomation Beans: Brad Cole and Carbondale

Mayor Brad Cole said a shortfall in a special city sales tax forr Saluki Way could ultimately cost Southern Illinois University money.

Saluki Way has a budget of $83 million. Students will make up $41.5 million, while $20 million will come from a sales tax increase placed on the citizens of Carbondale.

The sales tax money will be funneled into Saluki Way over the next 20 years. At the end of each fiscal year, SIU is given the first $1 million of the sales tax collection.

But what if the sales tax fails to bring in $1 million dollars in a given year?

“If it comes in at $900,000, that’s all they get. They have to make up the difference,” Cole said.

When the sales tax increase was implemented, it was projected to bring in $1.2 million per year. A bad economy has changed that projection to under $1million..

Cole pushed for the sales tax increase and it was enacted in January of 2008. At the time, Cole claimed public safety was the drive behind the increase, but he also saw the potential for the university to benefit.

“It’s a total package in our opinion,” Cole said. Although there are no estimations on how Saluki Way will help Carbondale’s economy, he expects the renovations to SIU Arena and construction of a new football stadium to attract tourism and pump money into the city. He believes that if SIU suffers, Carbondale would too, and he is willing to help.

The bad economic situation in Illinois has also affected the city’s budget and the number of jobs available in Carbondale.

Carbondale’s fiscal year lasts from May 1 to April 30, and the city is currently deciding on the annual budget. The current fiscal year’s budget is $42 million, and Cole is predicting a zero-growth budget for the next one.

Because the city does not plan to spend any more money than last year, many projects and renovations people are expecting may not happen. But Cole said he has made preparations for the upcoming fiscal year, hoping to avert a bad economic situation for the city of Carbondale.

Cole said that unknown factors may affect the economy and cost-saving efforts must be made beforehand. To do this, he said the city plans to trim back on some projects, which would mean eliminating the staffing needs for those projects.

Normally Carbondale would receive funding through the state for these projects, but the current economic situation presents a problem. Illinois has made many cutbacks and is delaying payments to Carbondale, forcing Cole to adjust and find ways to provide funds.

“We have to make budget decisions because we have to pay for it somehow,” Cole said.

Cole has made it his policy to operate without a property tax, so most funding comes from the above-average sales tax. But, by eliminating the property tax, Cole’s intention is to save the citizens money, hoping that they will spend more on businesses and stimulate the economy.

Another pressing situation is job cutbacks. Although Carbondale faces a 1.6 percent lower unemployment rate than the average in Illinois, jobs are still being lost.

There will be positions available through the city, such as neighborhood inspectors. But only half a dozen positions are currently available and will not significantly affect the unemployment rate.

“The average citizen will not receive an impact from this,” Cole said.

But Cole hopes that his preparations and cutbacks will ultimately lead Carbondale down the right path. He has

confidence that Carbondale will remain financially soundl and keep the city’s strengths intact.

Information Beans: "Glory Box" Focuses on Gay Rights

An internationally renowned performance artist will make his way to SIUC tonight to present his solo performance “Glory Box.”

Tim Miller will perform in the Marion Kleinau Theatre at 8 p.m. According to Miller, “Glory Box” is the most emotionally intense and funniest piece he has ever made.

“’Glory Box’ is a funny, sexy, and charged exploration of my journeys through the challenge of love, gay marriage, and the struggle for immigration rights for gay people and their partners,” Miller said in an e-mail.

Miller said the play reflects his real-life struggles with his Australian partner Alistair McCartney. Craig Gingrich-Philbrook, a professor in the Department of Speech Communication, said McCartney cannot become a United States citizen because of same-sex marriage laws.

“Their relationship has this sort of extra burden of dealing with these questions of immigration that a heterosexual couple wouldn’t face,” Gingrich-Philbrook said.

In addition to performing, Miller said he is also conducting a workshop with 16 students to prepare for their performance “Body Maps: Stories From Our Lives”, which will be performed on Saturday, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m. Gingrich-Philbrook said the performance is a collection of autobiographical stories about the students.

Shauna MacDonald, a student in the performance, said there are five workshops this week. She said the workshops last three hours and are very intense.

“It’s the type of experience where you know you’re there for three hours, but while you’re in it, it doesn’t feel like three hours,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald said the students are excited to work with Miller because he has been doing it for years and makes a life of it.

“It’s the chance of a lifetime in some ways,” MacDonald said.

Meagan Oestry, a senior majoring in speech communications, said Miller is fun to work with because he brings out the best in his students.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” Oestry said. “He’s brilliant and deeply caring.”

Gingrich-Philbrook said Miller conducts workshops across the country to share the value of solo performance to students. Miller said he was invited to the university by Gingrich-Philbrook and is having an amazing time.

“I ask the group to look under their big rocks and find the hot and wet places of their stories,” Miller said in an e-mail. “I ask them to own their fierce living and bring that forward into performance.”

MacDonald said Miller’s appearance reflects well on the speech communication department’s connections with outside artists.

Gingrich-Philbrook said the department is able to attract artists because of the Fine Arts Activity Fee, which funds these kinds of events.

“It provides the students the opportunity to see people of all kinds in the arts,” Gingrich-Philbrook said.

Gingrich-Philbrook said the workshops represent a great opportunity for the students to grow as performers.

“It provides confidence and a sense that they really can do it, that our experience matters, and the art we make out of our experience matters,” Gingrich-Philbrook said.

Both performances will take place in the Marion Kleinau Theatre, located on the second floor of the Communications Building. Tickets are free, but must be reserved in advance in by calling 618-453-5618.