Lauren Shuman
Online Editor
The 2017 Spring Fitness Challenge is already underway, with 244 W students and faculty members competing to be the “biggest loser” this semester.
For five years now, Campus Recreation and Passport to Wellness have sponsored and organized this weight-loss competition. Yet LeAnn Alexander, director of Campus Recreation, says there’s more to it than just dropping a few pounds.
Tara Baucom
Reporter
Blakney Clark is a Communication major from Caledonia. On Oct. 9, while hunting with a crossbow, Clark accidentally shot herself in the foot. Photos of the injury quickly gained popularity on social media, inspiring Clark to speak out on the importance of weapon safety.
Q: Can you walk us through how it happened?
Monica Kizer
Reporter
Alan Johnson is the director of Dining Services at The W. Originally from Milwaukee, Wis., Johnson has been in the South for several years now and a staff member at The W for the last three. During the fall semester, the dining hall has hosted monotony breaker events such as the World’s Fair and other "Elite Events" to ensure students a great dining experience. Johnson shares insights of the Dining Services’ past and future events throughout the semesters.
Q: What brought you to The W?
Briana Rucker
Reporter
The presidential election results had various emotions circulating the campus as well as the rest of the nation.
“What I witnessed when I came back to school immediately the next day was just—silence,” said Mattie Walls, a Family Studies major at The W. “Everyone walked around like it never happened. We didn’t discuss it in class. You may have discussed it a lot with your family and friends, but at school it was like no one said anything about it.”
Lauren Trimm
News Editor
W alum Jamie Scrivener met with students on Nov. 10 to talk about how to get a job in the communication field after college.
Scrivener is currently working as the Public Relations and Sports Information Director for Mississippi Delta Community College. She graduated from The W in 2013 with a degree in Communication and a minor in Marketing.
Lauren Trimm
News Editor
The Columbus Arts Council, Columbus Community Theatre, MUW Center for Research and Public Policy and Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation recently presented a haunted tour of Columbus.
Ghosts and Legends included a bus tour to several historic and “haunted” stops around Columbus. Attendees met at the Tennessee Welcome Center and had their choice of departure times being 6:30, 7, 8 or 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 11-12. Each tour lasted around 75 minutes.
Jessica Barnett
Editor
My mother is cooking Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents’ house this Saturday. The whole family is invited.
For my mother, this means both grandparents, her three siblings, my stepdad, my six siblings, my two brothers-in-law and my two nephews. I don’t have cousins on her side, and significant others are only invited if they put a ring on it.
Anush Aryal
Reporter
The W is set for a change of faces as Sodexo is making way for GCA Services Group. Sodexo’s contract for facilities management with The W is expiring at the end of this year, and GCA will replace it.
“Sodexo’s facilities management contract with The W facilities management is expiring this December," said Dave Haffley, director of Outsourced Resources. "So we had issued [Request for Proposals] in August calling for companies to bid. A committee of seven to evaluate the RFPs was formed, and they addressed the bids through September and October and decided for GCA Services Group."
