Southeast Missouri State University student publication

RAGE 1037 celebrates College Radio Day by chunkin' punkins'

Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Station Manager Jacob Haun recording in the RAGE 1037 office. Photo by Nathan Hamilton

On Oct. 2 members of RAGE 103.7 plan to hurl pumpkins through the air to their demise. This is the big event planned to celebrate the second annual College Radio Day on Southeast Missouri State University's campus.

College Radio Day is recognized in 21 different countries with 525 college radio stations participating, according to collegeradioday.com.

"College Radio Day was started two years ago as a way to unite all the college radio stations across the country," RAGE program co-director Drew Yount said. "It has actually expanded to across the world now. There are hundreds of stations nationwide, and then worldwide, on top of that, there are hundreds more. It's a worldwide unification of the independence of college radio."

RAGE has been involved in College Radio Day since its beginning. Last year it introduced its official website rage1037.com, and although that was a big step for the radio station, it did not involve listeners. This year the RAGE staff wanted to do something more interactive with their audience. It was from this that the idea of Punkin' Chunkin' was born.

At the Punkin' Chunkin' event, people will have the opportunity to launch pumpkins from a trebuchet across Parker Field. The staff hopes to have 20 to 25 pumpkins to fling, and to award prizes for the best decorated pumpkin and the one that flies the farthest. A time has not been set for the event since RAGE has not officially received permission to use the field on College Radio Day.

Station technician Luke Lukefahr is designing the trebuchet based off of a smaller model he made in highschool to fling eggs into a skillet.

"The base will stand about six-foot-tall, but the arm will be another six-foot, so about 12-feet total," Lukefahr said. "By design it should fling the pumpkins farther than the football field, so it just depends how much counterweight we put on the trebuchet."

Yount said the event relates to College Radio Day because it shows the individuality of a college radio station and the freedom that encompasses that.

"It's something that we're doing to show that the whole point of College Radio Day is to unify and emphasize the fact that college radio is different," Yount said. "Its unique. It's anything that you want it to be really. So just to kind of show the fact that we're a college radio station and we can go out and launch pumpkins just because we want too. That's where the idea spurred from, and how we are tying it in with College Radio Day because it is very random and sporadic, and we're a college radio station so that's what we can do."

Anyone is welcome to attend and launch their pumpkin as well as learn more about how to get involved with RAGE.

Pumpkins will be available at the RAGE station in Grauel Building room 101 during the radio show Afternoon Entertainment from 3 to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and during Secret Stash on Friday's from noon-1 p.m. Once their pumpkins are decorated, the participants should drop their pumpkins back off in between those times.

Lukefahr recommended not cutting into the pumpkins because it would affect their flight, but to instead decorate them with capes or other creative decorations.

The RAGE staff hopes to have to have the pumpkins donated, and is asking for canned items or money donations for the charity of their choice.

"We're planning on partnering with National Broadcasting Society and using that as our way to donate through NBS to some local charity," Yount said. "Especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas time coming up they're looking for money and food donations. We're hoping to do something with that."

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