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October 2011
Volume 24
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Boise, Idaho
13
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Top Stories
Bedazzled Broncos
See Natalie’s D.I.Y. designs for supporting the Broncos in style.
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The Mtn.
Boise State football may be as fickle as the Idaho weather.
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A Nobel for Arab women
CODY FINNEY/THE ARBITER
Rangers simulate the procedure of attending to a wounded soldier in the field Saturday at Gowen Field. The event, called the Ranger Challenge, brought ROTC programs from seven different universities to compete against Boise State.
ROTC compete, place second in challenge Stephanie Casanova Assistant News Editor
Tawakkol Karman is the first Arab woman to win a Nobel Prize.
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Nine Boise State Reserves Officer Training Corps. (ROTC) students reported to Major Rick Storm at 4:45 a.m. Saturday for a Physical Training (PT) test in which they were challenged to do push-ups, sit-ups and run two miles. The PT test was just the beginning of the Ranger Challenge, a day full of skill and endurance tests. Boise State ROTC competed against seven other colleges at Gowen Field Saturday, Oct. 8. The University of Hawaii, Montana State, University of Montana and Carroll College traveled to Boise for the day-long competition. In-state Brigham Young University-Idaho and Idaho State attended the challenge as well. Gonzaga brought two teams to the competition: team black and team gold. Boise State’s ROTC team placed second behind Gonzaga: Black, finishing in four hours and 45 minutes. The top two teams from this challenge will move on to regionals. During the PT test, students were given two minutes for push-ups and sit-ups and then timed on a two-mile run beginning at 5:45 a.m. “(The Challenge is) designed to bring competition amongst the ROTC programs, to build camaraderie amongst future army officers (and) to test their skills,” Lt. Jacob Bartlow said. Bartlow is currently an active duty member in the Army and Boise State’s gold bar recruiter. The challenge was in the desert where teams had to travel a 10K (seven miles) loop, stopping about every two-thirds of a mile for each station. They also had to carry a rubber weapon that
is the same weight as a real weapon and a 50-pound rucksack. The members jogged from one point to another, traveling at about four to six mph. Each station tested skills necessary for combat. The teams were also tested in leadership and teamwork during the tasks. “Moving around with the weight on your back … cumulatively it’ll smoke you … you’ll have chaffing inside your thighs, you’ll have blisters open … it’s something that you get used to,” senior cadet Troy Emge said. The first station was map reading and land navigation. “Land navigation is a key important skill for the Army, not only to know where you are, but to know how to get to where you’re going,” Bartlow said. “It can save you when you’re lost through stuff like resection (means of establishing a location) and intersection and you can shoot azimuths (angular measurement) and you can draw those azimuths on a map. You can figure out where that point is and you can figure out a back azimuth to where you are.” After the land navigation station was the first-aid test. The team went through their first-aid procedures on a 185-pound dummy then had to carry it on a stretcher to a landing zone where a helicopter would, theoretically, pick up the body. “The situation is, out here they have the body … what they do is they check for consciousness, check for bleeding (and) check for breathing,” Bartlow said. The rest of the challenge consisted of a rope bridge assessment where the team had to tie a rope and get themselves and their equipment across it. In the leadership reaction course, the team had to get through a tractor tire obstacle course. The final two events were weapons and
equipment inspection. The ROTC students were given a weapon to disassemble and assemble in the fastest possible time. “They take an M16, a real one, unloaded, no ammo and they completely disassemble and field strip it and then put it all back together again,” Bartlow said. The equipment inspection could be detrimental to the team’s final score. Any missing piece of equipment because of distractions along the loop costs the team a time penalty. The teams were also tested on situational awareness; they were to look out for things such as hidden bombs or traces of “the enemy.” Cans of CO2 tied to a cell phone were left along the path as well as weapons hidden in bushes. The team was to identify the location of these and mark them on the map. The Ranger Challenge is meant to prepare the students for actual combat. Though not as intense, Boise State’s ROTC students often participate in similar situational and training exercises. They have a three-day field training exercises event where they do situational training exercises. The cadets are put in groups and given a mission. On the first day they take an order and detailed instructions for that order. Day two is all about land navigation. The team is to find points on a timed course, eight during the day and five at night. On the final day, they march out. In the spring, in-state participant schools meet at Gowen Field for an event similar to the Ranger Challenge. The cadets do get a break from their usually strict lifestyle with the annual Military Ball. They get to dress in their Class A’s—fancy, presentable military uniform— and take a date to dinner and a dance.
SSPA asks graduates to ‘give your year’ Mostly Sunny
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Stephanie Casanova Assistant News Editor
Raising awareness doesn’t always require a heartbreaking commercial with Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” playing in the background, or a TV commercial with professional athletes playing sports and running around with kids. A group of administrators assisted by dedicated student PR clubs can do the trick. The College of Social Sciences and Public Affairs (SSPA), with the help of the Boise State’s chapter of Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) and Blue House Public Relations, launched Campaign $20.11 last April. Campaign $20.11 is a project that asks graduating students of the class of 2011 in SSPA to donate $20.11 to create a permanently endowed scholarship for future SSPA students. The campaign has been successful thus far in raising awareness and receiving donations. The necessary base amount to endow a scholarship at Boise State is $10,000. “We have raised over $11,000 … we were able to do that in three and a half months,” said Rick Jung, who
has been director of development for SSPA since summer 2010. Jung developed the idea for Campaign $20.11 and talked it over with Melissa Lavitt, dean of SSPA. They then took the necessary steps to make this idea come to life. “I couldn’t do it on my own— we had support from our student advisory committee here in SSPA, Blue House and PRSSA did a lot of work with me early on in crafting message and … helping design the campaign,” Jung said. “They were really instrumental because I think having student input and having students look at what you’re doing and giving you feedback and kind of challenging the way you look at things is really important.” Campaign $20.11 is SSPA’s way to reconnect Boise State alumni to the college and help graduating students maintain a lifelong relationship with their university. “This was a campaign for students and alumni and we had two alumni who stepped forward and gave $2,011 gifts which were pretty significant,” Jung said. “They wanted to give back and they thought this was a great way to do it.” These two donors were scholarship recipients when they studied
at Boise State. The campaign now has 155 donors and a total of 200 donors are predicted by the end of the fall semester. Thirty percent of the faculty and staff of SSPA contributed to the account. A student organization also associated with the public affairs program donated $800. “Our average gift for this campaign was about $80,” Jung said. “We are extremely pleased with the response that we’ve gotten.” Part of the reason the campaign has had so much success is because of the small amount of money it is asking for. Instead of asking for a large donation once, they are hoping that students and alumni donate annually. “We think a person who gives … a gift every year over the course of their life is just as significant and so what we want to do is we want to build students into becoming lifelong donors… and a $20.11 gift has a significant impact when enough of them do it,” Jung said. Though Campaign $20.11 will be officially closed in December, Campaign $20.12 will be the next step to a hopefully long lasting Boise State tradition.
CODY FINNEY/THE ARBITER
David Domminney Fowler artfully plays as he energes from the light. The Australian Pink Floyd have been called one of the best Pink Floyd cover bands.
Aussie cover band performs Pink Floyd Jenn Haskin Journalist
For a tribute band, The Australian Pink Floyd is phenomenal and nobody can deny the uncanny resemblance of their sound. The Aussies played to a crowd of approximately 900 people at the
Morrison Center on Sunday night. From ages 9 to 90, the audience was extremely diverse. Everyone from the average music lover to the tie-dye wearing hippies to loyal, hard-core Pink Floyd fans came to see the famous light show. Read the entire story and see photos from the show online.
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