Engineers sponsor comedy skit competition for E-Week
Winners will be crowned Saturday at the St. Pat"s Ball.
Published March 11, 2005
When master of ceremonies Caleb Rich arrived on stage Tuesday night wearing a skirt and sunglasses, audience members at Déjà Vu knew they were in for a good night.
As part of the Engineers' Week celebration, engineering students gathered at Déjà Vu to watch a comedy skit competition that would determine the king and queen of the event.
The winners were seniors Ashley Stieferman and Mike Hetzel.
The skit, which Stieferman said was inspired by a dream, was based on the "Road Rally" scavenger hunt held earlier during Engineers' Week.
It featured Hetzel and Stieferman wearing black "censored" boxes instead of clothes as Hetzel bragged about the size of his wooden staff, traditionally called a shillelagh. The skit ended when Hetzel's "capstone project," a Michael Jackson robot, performed a dance for the crowd.
For the winning skit, Stieferman and Hetzel said they started preparations rather late.
"We started Monday night for the performance on Tuesday," Stieferman said.
Stieferman and Hetzel will be crowned at the St. Pat's Ball. The annual Engineers' Week is held around St. Patrick's Day, to honor the patron saint of engineers.
Andrew Stillwell and Ashlynn Holman, both seniors, won second place for their skit, which spoofed the movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
In their skit, Stillwell and Holman were on a search for the blarney stone. Their skit took them on a visit to the School of Business, the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources and the University of Missouri-Rolla, "the land of curdled milk and no honeys." The trip ended when they found the blarney stone, which was really a bottle of Jaegermeister.
Holman said though many performers started preparing a skit at the last minute, she enjoyed them.
"They were all really good," Holman said. "We had a lot of fun."
Seniors Justin Moll and Sarah Beckman won third place.
The other two groups to perform were seniors Carol Shumate and Ryan Zupon, along with senior LeAnne Menne and junior Phil VanDeusen.
At the end of the night, retiring professor of engineering Bob Leavene was honored witha plaque.
"We have the greatest students in the world," Leavene said. "The hardest thing about retiring is not being around you all."
In addition to the ball on Saturday, there will be a knighting ceremony tonight, and green light will illuminate the Jesse Hall dome for the rest of the week.