2008 Woodie Awards
Putting a dollar sign on dates
By: Lanz Christian Banes
Issue date: 2/23/06 Section: LifeStyle
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That was the philosophy behind the annual Residential Housing Association Date Auction Feb. 20 in the University Center Sunnen Lounge.
Altogether, RHA raised $2,181 by selling off 31 volunteer students to a packed house of a raucous crowd of about 200.
This fell shy of the $2,800 raised last year and RHA's goal to
surpass it.
"Who cares now?" asked sophomore art history major Beth Blumfelder, RHA secretary and chief organizer of the date auction. "We raised over $2,000. I'm happy with what we got."
The Sunnen Lounge was transformed by 10 RHA members into a streamer-strewn, pink and red auction house, complete with a red plastic carpet-covered aisle down which the auctionees strutted to a raised platform that served as the auction block.
Once there, sophomore Dee Goines, a speech communications major and the night's auctioneer, gave a brief introduction to the candidates, then took bids, usually beginning at $5. Behind the auctionees, RHA projected various biographical information, including "best feature" ("my eyes" was the most popular) and "place of first kiss."
The night also included two-for-one auctions, including a set of identical twins, freshmen Rebecca and Sara Gunn.
Several of the auctioned students used gimmicks to try to raise their chances of a higher bid.
Sophomore Benny Roberts, a sophomore sociology major, came on stage accompanied by "bodyguards" sophomore Bryan Childress and junior Larry Morris.
The two "protected" Roberts, with Morris even going so far as to descend from the auction block to "take care" of a particularly obnoxious crowd member. Morris, an audio production major, claimed that he and Childress were part of an underground security detail at Webster that dealt in "legal /illegal activities."
Roberts, whose admitted best features were his mind and his mouth, was eventually bought for $40.