Really Big Event

Over the weekend, I attended Big Event (You can watch the video here.)

For those who aren’t in the know, Big Event is the biggest student-run community service project in the nation. It’s in its 25th year, and from the looks of it, it’s going strong. According to event coordinators, more than 9,500 students participated.

Big Event is run by teams forming, typically student organizations like sororities or Corps outfits, signing up for a project, and going out as a group to do their community service project on Big Event day. If someone in the Bryan-College Station community feels like they need help, they can apply to the Big Event and have their project assigned to a team. It’s amazing that that many students are willing to give up a Saturday to give back to the community.

But Big Event is not without it’s drawbacks. Well, more like, Big Event could do so much more than they’re doing. From talking to many participants in Big Event, as well as my experience last Saturday, I’ve seen that there is one group that really lack in Big Event coverage: the poor. Many of those helped by Big Event are older people, which is nice that we can help them, but they’re also fairly well off. Most of them, though they might not be able to do landscaping or painting themselves, could probably afford to pay for those services. The group I went with help a family paint a shed. Now, this family has an autistic child, and I now they were more than grateful to have someone help them with what was a nicely sized project. The problem is, they didn’t need it. It was a shed in their rather large backyard that the mother used as kind of an outdoor office.

What I would like to see more at Big Event is actually helping people with things they need. Let’s go to inner-city Bryan and feed the homeless. Let’s go to northwest College Station and paint the houses of people who can’t afford to do so. Let’s walk up and down the streets of Bryan and College Station and pick up trash. Let’s help the Brazos Valley Animal Shelter round up stray cats and dogs. Don’t wait for the poor to go to you, you go to the poor.

Now, that’s not to say Big Event doesn’t do good work, because they do. They wouldn’t be able to do this for 25 years in a row if they weren’t doing something right. But instead of focusing on old, middle-class, white people, let’s hit every part of the Brazos Valley.

So long, seniors…

This is a sad day for the Aggie community. Well, those Aggies who follow sports, at least. If you didn’t see, the men’s basketball team lost by one point last night to Memphis in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. It was the first time we’d been to a Sweet 16 since 1980, and we’ve never gone farther (at least since the tournamnet was made into a 64-team bracket).

This has been a special season for A&M. The year before my freshman year, we went 7-21 and 0-16 in conference. Aggie basketball was in the dumps. It’s never been premiere, Texas A&M is and probably always will be a football school, but those years were some of the worst. But then came Billy Gillispie.

He ressurected the program. He turned Acie Law IV from an average player who almost quit the team when Billy came into a virtual Aggie legend and one of the best players in the country. He made Aggie basketball so popular, A&M had to endure one of the biggest fiascos in college sports.

What does this have to do with the Multimedia desk? Well, had this been any other team, even football, I might not feel as crushed as I do now about our loss last night. But I do. And it’s not becauseI personally am hurt. I hurt for our players, especially our seniors.

I’m not and never have been a sports writer, but this past season, I felt like I got to know the players a lot better by interviewing them and sitting in on interviews with them. Each one of those seniors; Acie Law IV, Antanas Kavalauskas, Marlon Pompey (and even Lee, Johnston, and Blackburn, I feel like I know them. They’re not just faces on a TV screen or bodies I see from far away. They are seniors who pushed through losing season, grueling practices, and agonizing losses to get this far.

I love Acie Law. Not because he’s a clutch basketball player. Not because he’s brought A&M so much prestige. But because he honest. I can say, without a doubt, that he was not on that court for personal gain. He did not play his heart out because he wants to make millions in the NBA and get a shoe deal with Nike. He was out there because he loves his teammates, his coach, A&M, and the game of basketball. I’m not sure I’ve been able to say that about any sports figure with more confidence.

When you the get time, watch some of these videos. Watch Antanas cry about not wanting to leave College Station. Watch Acie talk about the most important thing to him after graduating is staying in touch with his teammates. Watch Billy G. tear up about the guys he’s coached for three years. And of course, watch them light up Reed Arena.

The War in Iraq and Brazos County

Click here to watch the Batt Video for March 20, 2007

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the War in Iraq, and naturally, the protesters made their voices heard around the U.S. In Bryan-College Station, the home of Texas A&M, and “Bush Country” to many (if you’re not familiar with A&M, we have George H.W. Bush’s Presidential Library on our campus), the community as a whole is quite conservative. With the Library, the Corps of Cadets, A&M’s military history, and the simple fact that we’re in Texas, it’s pretty easy to see that most of A&M would be pretty supportive of the war effort. Heck, our previous president is now serving as the Secretary of Defense.

With this in mind, I assumed that a protest here would be, well, non-existent. But when I heard about the Brazos Valley Coalition Against the War’s protest, I was surprised. I headed out to the location of their vigil/protest, the corner of Texas Ave. and University Drive, the northeast corner of campus.

The Batt & New Media

Welcome to Behind the Multimedia Desk blog here at The Battalion. You’ve navigated your way here, so stay awhile, have a look around.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Chris Hokanson, and I’m the Multimedia Editor at The Battalion. I joined The Batt as a copy editor and page designer in the Fall of 2005 and did that until Fall 2006. During the Summer of 2006, I also worked as a photographer for The Batt, mainly due to a staff shortage, but also because I love photographer and wanted a chance to learn and gain experience. In the Fall of ‘06, I served as the News Editor, where I was the head of the Copy Desk. This spring, I’m working to bring The Batt to the forefront of the movement in journalism away from print and onto online and multimedia.

You may or may not have noticed, but The Batt is doing quite a few things differently than we have in the past. We were one of the first college papers to offer a podcast (by way of our daily radio show, also broadcast on 90.9 FM KAMU), which we’ve been doing for 3 or 4 years, and now we’ve also added a weekly (soon to be bi-weekly) podcast called The Wire.

Probably our biggest addition to the website is video. For the most part, I’ve been filming and editing all of the video, and I must say, it’s great (But hey, if anyone wants to work as a video reporter, I’d be more than happy to have the help. E-mail me at radio@thebattalion.net). I’ve covered everything from our Theater Department’s production of “Two Rooms” to the Men’s Basketball team’s Senior Night. Right now, we have our videos hosted on YouTube, simply because it’s a platform that’s already set up for us, is easy for us to integrate into our website, and is easy for our readers (and now viewers!) to subscribe to and to share. Eventually, we’d like to build and integrate our own video player, but for right now, the world’s largest viral video site is also the home for Batt Video. You can check out our video reports at thebatt.com (click on AV Center) or you can subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

There are many, many things in the works for thebatt.com, and I’m excited to be a part.

Thanks and Gig’em.