by Alec Hill
Executive Staff
Sewanee Idol, the annual campus musical talent competition that the Outreach Office uses to raise money for its Spring Break trips, took place on Saturday, February 22 at the Phi Society of 1883’s Party Barn. This year, the event was organized by and for the benefit of the members of the Haiti Trip, a group of 18 students from every grade who will be spending 12 days in a rural village in Haiti running a dentistry clinic and working on a coffee tree-planting project this March. The trip is being lead by Dixon Myers, Deborah McGrath, and Bruce Baird, along with Linnea Carver (C’14) and Elizabeth Sega (C’14), but the bulk of the organization of Sewanee Idol was done by Ellie Quinn (C’14). Quinn spearheaded the advertising and decoration and ticket-selling efforts that the group undertook.
Those who paid for tickets to support this great cause were treated to seven raucous different acts, composed entirely of fraternity and sorority pledge classes who had no choice in the matter when it came to their performance.
In the end, Celebrity Judges Dixon Myers, Callie Sadler, and Monique Stitts awarded the win to Theta Pi’s pledge class for the second straight year, due perhaps to the fact that they provided an unrequested encore performance at the end of the night. Other highlights included a profoundly moving, inspired performance by KA’s pledge class, whose loss a few pledges took very personally: one commented on the event’s Facebook page that “I left my heart and soul on that stage and have nothing to show for it.”
Although official tallies aren’t in, early estimates of the event’s cash earnings hover in the $1000 range, an exciting amount to be able to put towards Sewanee’s initiatives in Haiti. A big thanks is owed to everyone involved in putting the event together, from the trip members to the celebrity judges to Phi for hosting.