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The Daily Illini
Monday April 23, 2012
High: 60˚ Low: 40˚
www.DailyIllini.com
The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
Vol. 141 Issue 138
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Assembly Hall lights up with ‘all that jazz’ Illini Union Board puts on musical production of ‘Chicago’ with changes for venue BY GORDON UTENDAHL CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Illini Union Board’s production of “Chicago” brought murder, greed, corruption and lust straight from the vaudeville-inspired musical to the main stage at the Assembly Hall on Saturday. Zach Moyer, director and sophomore in FAA, said the 24-member cast tried to stay true to the original musical and screenplay while still tailoring it to appeal to their targeted audience. “I made the choice really early on to take some major
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See CHICAGO, Page 3A
MELISSA MCCABE THE DAILY ILLINI
A Holi participant yells as he is doused with a bucket of water during the celebration on the lawn behind the Business Instructional Facility. Holi, also known as the Festival of Colors, is a Hindu holiday celebrated in spring. This year it was celebrated on campus Saturday.
More on-air: For more
on ‘Chicago’ at the Assembly Hall, tune in to WPGU 107.1-FM at 5 p.m.
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BY KAITLIN PENN COPY EDITOR
Hundreds of students, community members celebrate Festival of Colors
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olored powder fi lled the air at the Business Instructional Facility Lawns on Saturday as about 500 students and community members threw handfuls at each other to celebrate Holi, a Hindu spring festival. Registered student organization Asha For Education, a national, secular nonprofit, hosted the event celebrating Holi, also known as the Festival of Colors. About $4,000 of ticket proceeds from the event went toward organizations that support children in India. Pratim Patil, co-chapter coordinator of Asha, said this was the second year the RSO hosted the event. “We did it here last year for the fi rst time, and we were testing how this would turn out as a fundraiser, and it was really great,” Patil
COMPILED BY SARI LESK ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
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“It’s an extra opportunity to hang out with my mom. I don’t always get to go home every weekend, so she gets to come to me.”
BY THOMAS THOREN AND MAGGIE HUYNH STAFF WRITER AND DAYTIME EDITOR
As Chief Illiniwek’s absence hits the five-year mark, one independent logo has emerged as a temporary alternative for pro-Chief fans, which debuted Friday. After a year of designing the logo, the Council of Chiefs, a group of former Chief Illiniwek portrayers, has teamed up with Gameday Spirit to sell T-shirts with the logo. Steve Raquel, president of the council, said this gives fans and alumni a new way to tangibly support the Chief. He added that a portion of the sales of will go toward scholarship funds and service-based events. The council went through a long design process in order to find a balance between something that would be recognizable to fans yet different enough to avoid copyright infringement against the University’s round Chief logo. “At the end of the day, we went to this very abstract logo because we wanted the logo to be distinct enough so: one, we wouldn’t have any trademark issues, and two, that it could stand by itself,” he said. The council first attempted to gain access to the round logo but was denied by the University. “We wanted the tradition to continue
“Even when I come home, or just even over the summer, everyone’s busy, so it’s kind of hard to just get time out, just have it me and my mom. So it’s nice to just kind of spend the whole day, and she gets to see the life I live here away from home.”
KATHY RUDA, freshman in Media
“Just being able to hang out with her and just do things. We’re here the whole weekend, and it’s just bonding together.” GRETCHEN CHARLES, mother of Bryanna Charles, freshman in FAA
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More on-air: Tune into WPGU 107.1-FM for the 5 p.m. newscast for more information on the celebration of Holi. More online: Visit DailyIllini.com to see a video of students and community members celebrating Saturday’s Festival of Colors.
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B.K. Sharma, senior research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, said he enjoyed the size of the event. Last year, Sharma said he hosted a small Holi celebration with about ten families at Orchard Downs Apartments. “It’s a festival of colors, and it’s a festival ... that brings people together,” Sharma said.
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Five years later, Chief Illiniwek logo gets update
KELSEY HAYWOOD, sophomore in AHS
INSIDE
said. “The response was really awesome, so we decided to scale it up and had it on a bigger scale this time.” Gwyn Puckett, graduate student, said she appreciated the learning experience Holi presented. “It’s introducing (Indian) culture to America,” Puckett said. “So it’s introducing something to American students they may not be exposed to.” For some students, it was their first time celebrating Holi. Reginald Askew, graduate student, came for the first time this year and said he encourages people to go in the future. “I learned about it in high school, my freshman year,” Askew said. “This is my first one that I’ve attended, even though I’ve known about it for a few years. It’s really fun.”
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moving forward,” Raquel said. “We felt that developing our own logo that we could own, that’s outside the purview of the University ... was going to be something that we hoped would be supported by alumni and fans.” Raquel said he and the council realize the history of the round Chief logo cannot be replaced, and they do not wish to do that. He said they would welcome that logo back if the University were to change its stance but must adjust to the present circumstances. Raquel said creating a new mascot, like what is being attempted by a registered student group’s ongoing mascot competition, is “hard to do” because mascots and their accompanying traditions must come organically through peoples’ passion and experiences at a university. Emily Hartl, sophomore in LAS, was one of the first customers to come to Gameday Sports after the store began selling the T-shirts at 4 p.m. Friday. She said she is pro-Chief and found out about the new logo via Facebook. “It’s kind of abstract, not necessarily what you think of when you think of a new Chief logo,” she said. “I hope it takes off.” She said she sees the new design and merchandise as a small way to reincorpo-
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rate the Chief into campus culture. Cory Shumard, manager of Gameday Spirit, said this is the first time his store has been approached by a group looking to sell a new Chief design since the University stopped using the Chief mascot in 2007. “Once we saw the logo and what a wonderful job they did with it, everything else from there was just semantics,” he said. He said the product line will expand in the coming week with more T-shirt designs, and he hopes it will grow to more products, such as sweatshirts, in the future. Though Raquel said the only backlash he has received thus far was from passionate Chief supporters who do not want to move beyond the round logo, Shumard said he expects more backlash for selling this new design. “We would be naïve to think there wouldn’t be some (backlash),” he said. Shumard said in the 15 years he has operated the store at their Green and Sixth streets location, he has received criticism for selling the University-sanctioned logo. “I always hoped that I had enough orange and blue in my store that would cater to both opinions,” he said. Shumard said he believes the council’s goal for this new product line is to remind
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MAGGIE HUYNH THE DAILY ILLINI
Gameday Sports displays new T-shirts with the new Chief logo shortly after they went on sale Friday.
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More inside: For a supportive
perspective of the new design and the school spirit, check out the editorial on Page 4A.
people about what the Chief stood for and to make sure it is not forgotten. As of Sunday evening, Gameday Spirit had nearly sold out of their initial 250 shirts. It will restock the current designs this Tuesday and will begin offering three new designs with the words “Forever,” “Lives” and “Respect” this Thursday.
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