The first night of games was held on March 25^th with the juniors facing off with the freshmen in the first game. The junior class struggled at times but eventually opened up a sizable lead. ASCE vice-president, Brad Schnarr, filled the basket up with a barrage of threes to lead the juniors to victory.

In the second match-up, the seniors were matched against the sophomores. The sophomores were led by a fabulous trio, which included Josh Williford, Sam Johnson and Bryan Egli. The seniors kept it close for quite a while, but they were plagued by a shallow bench. The sophomores prevailed at the end with the trio of engineer basketball players carrying them to victory.

This meant the final game pitted the juniors against the sophomores, which was held on Thursday, March 27^th. This was the class of ‘98s first appearance in the final game of the tournament. The three guns of the sophomore class proved to be too much to handle once again. The juniors struggled to find anyone to guard any of them and they just took control of the game. The sophomores played very good basketball to claim the last civil basketball tournament to be held in the legendary Shook Fieldhouse. Maybe the new venue will allow the defending champs to get upset next year.

The most important test that you will take at Rose-Hulman is the FE/EIT for graduating seniors. This general test of engineering skills is what all of the classes at Rose have been preparing you for. The test covers all areas of engineering including mathematics, chemistry, statics, dynamics, engineering economy, and other general engineering topics. The morning session consisted of a general test (120 multiple-choice problems) which covered all areas of engineering. The problems in the morning test were short and simple, testing the most fundamental topics in engineering. The afternoon session, on the other hand, consisted of either a general test or a discipline specific test (60 multiple-choice problems). Dr. McKinney suggested that civil engineering students take the discipline specific test because statistics have shown that students taking the discipline specific tests performed better than students taking the general test. The afternoon discipline specific test consisted of longer more difficult problems that focused on applying civil engineering skills in a variety of different areas.

I thought the morning test was quite simple even with very little preparation. All of the topics in the morning session were covered in the general engineering classes required at Rose. However, the afternoon session was much more difficult. All but a couple of problems on the afternoon discipline specific test were covered in civil engineering classes. The concepts were more difficult to recall with little preparation. Therefore, I would suggest reviewing only civil engineering topics when preparing to take the FE/EIT. I believe that Rose-Hulman has prepared all students extremely well to take and pass the FE/EIT partly because of the variety of engineering classes covering various fields.

What is Circle K? Is it a dude ranch? A convenience store? NO! Circle K is a super-fun international collegiate service organization that even has a chapter RIGHT HERE on the campus of Rose-Hulman! Circle K is totally student run, from the individual clubs, all the way to the international body that governs the organization, one of the very, very few. The focus of Circle K lies among service, leadership and fellowship. So what does Circle K do? Well, I’ll let you in on the secret…

Throughout the past year, Circle K at Rose-Hulman has been seen all over town helping out other service organizations and serving the community of Terre Haute and the Rose campus. Every year, we participate in Campus Beautification Day and we clean up the two-mile strip of highway right outside of Rose. We started working with Red Cross last fall, first by cleaning up their yard, so they could concentrate their limited funds on services instead. Later, they called us back to serve as victims for their mock disaster workshop. That was a great time for all of the clowns and thespians in the group. Since we had been so helpful in the past, Red Cross immediately thought of Circle K when they needed help staffing a fund-raising booth. We’ve worked with many other organizations, too. We sorted clothing at the Bethany House, we played with, I mean, sorted toys for the Salvation Army. We took one weekend to put up the walls of a house for Habitat for Humanity. Lighthouse Mission was definitely grateful when we rearranged and cleaned up their toy section in the basement! Circle K even took a road-trip to Indy one weekend to join another Circle K Club in delivering a bit of cheer and some warm fuzzies to the nursing home in their area. Despite all of these activities, we make sure to plan some time to spend focusing on the future, the children.

One of the main children’s organizations we work with here in Terre Haute is the Gibault School for Boys, a place for boys to go who have exhausted all other chances for behavior rehabilitation. This year we met some of the boys at the Christmas Dinner put on by our sponsors, the Kiwanis Club of Greater Terre Haute. Later, we invited the boys to join us for a bowling and pizza party, our treat. It was a very rewarding experience for all; we got to know them better and the boys had a few new role models to look up to and we ALL got off of campus for a while. One of the boys said to me, "Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to us." Another endeavor we took on was to provide the Terre Haute Boys Club with a Lego contest for ages 6-12 during their National Boys Week celebration. This was a lot of fun as we were tackled and pushed around by all these little boys. Kiwis International and all related organizations (of which Circle K is the college level), in conjunction with UNICEF, has set out to rid the world of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD) by the year 2000. These diseases affect millions of children in impoverished countries that do not have iodized salt as a standard like we do. The Rose-Hulman Circle K set a goal to raise $1000 towards this fund this year, and to date we have raised $750 through roller-skating parties, ice cream socials and donut sales. We’ll be having one more fund-raiser this year to reach our goal. We are also raising money for the Leukemia Society of America through the sales of soda and candy during the Rose Show on Parents’ Weekend. This money will support research to find a cure for a disease that affects so many close to us.

In order to provide all of these services to the community, we have to have funding, of course. We achieve this by selling finals packs to Rose parents and deliver bags of treats to the students each quarter. You may have received one yourself. If not, be sure to tell your parents to order you one next fall.

Circle K is also about leadership; leadership towards building a better tomorrow, both for yourself and for the rest of the world. This year, our district of Circle K (Indiana) is taking the lead in becoming a paperless district. We have three members of our club sitting on the district board this year as they work to make the Internet our main method of communication, from newsletters to report forms, scholarship applications to officer handbooks. In addition, members of Circle K have an opportunity to attend three conventions throughout the year that allow us to learn more about being a leader, within our clubs and in our community, and to share our ideas with other Circle K members from around the world. Each convention is filled with motivational speakers, workshops, a huge service project, and lots of fun to boot (parties, dances, contests, etc.). This summer, our International Convention will be held in Chicago, IL.

Go ahead, throw away your paper and cans. It doesn’t matter if you throw them in a recycle bin; they are thrown away anyway. You might be thinking, wasn’t she in charge of revamping the recycling program? Yes, I was. I was asked to evaluate the program and write a report. This report was sent to a company that wanted to donate recycling containers, however, they are now not needed. It hasn’t always been this way. Building and Grounds used to take it upon themselves to haul paper and cans to ISU. However, because of employee changes, this is no longer happening because it is no longer a priority anymore. We were told Rose didn’t produce enough paper trash to justify collecting paper and taking it to ISU. However, we are still collecting cardboard and hauling it to ISU. Why? Because we get money back from recycling cardboard. So, now you are thinking ‘What can I do?’ For starters, let Dr. Hulbert know that recycling is important to the students. He is the only one who can really change this campus’s feelings on recycling. Furthermore, don’t give up hope. Hopefully, after everything has calmed down, maybe the campus can put their minds to improving the program.