TAMUCT celebrates celebrate with Warrior Picnic

By PAMELA GRANT

Cove Leader-Press

Last week, Texas A&M University-Central Texas (TAMUCT) celebrated Warrior Week which culminated in the college’s annual Warrior Picnic on Friday. 

The event featured free barbecue courtesy of Schoepf’s Old Time Bar-B-Que and free ice cream courtesy of Waffle Cone. In addition, they had a variety of fun carnival-type events such as a dunk booth, bull ride, bounce house, zip line, and more. Also included were a variety of booths giving information about several TAMUCT clubs and informational booths giving information about veteran groups, alcohol awareness, health care services, and more. As the sun set, the event culminated with a special outdoor movie showing of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

“We see it as an opportunity to reach out not only to our students, but to the community as a whole. That’s why you’ll see student organizations but also community organizations like the Free Clinic and the NAACP,” said Ben Belz, the assistant director of student and civic engagement, who helped organize and make sure the event was a success.

This year’s Warrior Week had a theme of “Writing our Story”.

“It signifies that as a university, we’re continuing to grow and establish who we are as a university. We’re writing that down and kind of establishing that before we move forward and continue to grow,” said Belz.

John Hayes, owner of the Waffle Cone, provided free ice cream for the event. Hayes said it took them four days to make the 130 gallons of ice cream which were given away throughout the day.

It’s wonderful to be a part of it,” said Hayes. “People love free ice cream…I appreciate them letting us come out here and scoop ice cream for the university.”

Cole Fox (10) said that he really enjoyed all of the rides and had tried many of them. “It’s fun!” said Fox. “Except for the zip line. It was scary.”

“It’s been fun,” said Tiffany Barber who brought her children Ivan (6) and Eugenia (3) to the event. “We just snuck over here to get some ice cream…and we’re for sure going to try the rides.”

The free picnic was a part of the university’s Warrior Week, which also included a blood drive, rugby tournament in which Texas A&M University rugby teams competed for the Chancellor’s Cup, an awards banquet recognizing student leaders, and more.