By Maya Douglas
The Margaret Hood Masquerade Ball, held on Saturday, March 20 in the BB&T Arena, became a collaborative effort between organizations due to a small 2018 class council.
The Margaret Hood Ball, an annual tradition, is usually the responsibility of the first year board and a Campus Activities Board chair.
The semi-formal dance is a farewell to seniors and a welcome into the Hood legacy for freshmen, according to Annie Mercer, Campus Activities Board chair.
“We wanted to keep it as traditional as possible since it was about the seniors,” said Jocelyn Cox, the class of 2018 president.
This year’s planning process was more difficult due to a low 2018 class committee according to Mercer. The 2018 class council was unusually small because of low numbers of participation during the election that occurred earlier this year. The Student Government Association offered assistance to Cox in order to make up for the lack of volunteers.
“It would’ve been cool to have freshmen involved more,” Cox said.
Mercer suggests that next year the other class councils step in instead of the SGA.
Whitney Onheiser, the 2018 vice president, said she would offer her help to the next year’s freshmen class she said.
“Make sure you have a strong class council,” said Onheiser as her suggestion to the future class council of 2019.
Despite the difficulties “the process went fairly smoothly,” Mercer said.
Onheiser attributes the success of the dance to thorough planning.
Cox and Onheiser were involved until the very last minute of the dance, even to the creation of the masquerade masks and table centerpieces.
Light schemes, decorations and contacting the D.J. were all very big parts of creating the dance.
An email sent out earlier in the week asked students to send in song requests for the D.J.
“One thing the class of 2018 was really excited about was sideline entertainment,” said Mercer.
A photo booth with the school mascot, Blaze, was advertised but was unable to be accomplished due to student worker scheduling conflicts.
“I think it went really well, there were no dance offs we had to stop.” Mercer said.
Despite the stress of the process, it paid off according to Cox.
“It felt good to see people come and actually stay all night,” she said.
The dance started at 10 p.m. and yielded a larger crowd at the starting time rather than the usual majority arriving at 11 p.m.
Those who came early were first to grab the chocolate covered strawberries provided by catering.
There were also mocktails and light refreshments served.
“I went because my friends were going,” said Catherine Johnson, freshman.
For next year Johnson suggests a smaller dance space, “so it looks like more people are there.”
Safety was maintained by requiring students to register guests and campus safety were on call for any suspicious activity.
The dance is named in the legacy of Margaret Hood, one of the biggest benefactors of Hood College whom college is named after.
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