Banana Splittin’ returns as Homecoming Week 2019 event
October 7, 2019
Campus Activities Board (CAB) will host the 37th annual Banana Splittin’ competition as a part of Homecoming Week festivities on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. in the Rybolt Academic Corridor.
Banana Splittin’ consists of groups of five to eight people eating banana split sundaes and competing in several different categories such as Best Costume, Fastest Eaters and Most Creative Eating Style.
One student, sophomore Abby Missey, was a part of a group at last year’s event that got creative in how they approached the category they were in, especially when it came to how they ate their sundaes.
“We all lined up and we interlocked arms and fed each other,” Missey said of her group who competed in the Most Creative Eating Style category last year.
Judges for this year’s event include Julie Shoup, student life administrative assistant, Nicholas Johnson, assistant professor of chemistry and Terri Link, director of diversity.
Junior Samantha Reffner, the CAB member in charge of the event this year, said members pick and vote on the choice of judges each year.
In addition to banana split sundaes, participants will receive a t-shirt for participating in the event and a trophy if their group wins the category they are competing in.
“The trophies are new, they were an idea that one of our other CAB members had suggested because she had seen trophies from a few decades ago and she suggested that we try it again,” Reffner said.
CAB plans, runs and sets up the entire event with the help of the tech crew and typically forms their own group to compete.
Sophomore CAB member Sydney Good said last year’s group dressed up as fruit such as cherries, kiwis, blueberries, strawberries and pineapples in the Best Dressed category.
“It was really fun just dressing up and making a team for that,” Good said reminiscing the event last year.
Like other events during Homecoming Week, Banana Splittin’ looks to involve everyone Reffner said, not just AU students.
“Students can make their own teams, faculty can make their own teams, community members can make their own teams…we’re really trying to pull out all the stops and get as many people to participate as possible because the more people that participate the more fun it is,” she said.