Michigan Tech students completing Winter Carnival snow statues

HOUGHTON/HANCOCK — Not even some lake effect snow can stop Michigan Tech students this week. They’re finishing the work on their month-long snow statues as part of the Winter Carnival festivities.

Summit/WIE took home first place last year among the residence halls and they plan on doing the same this year, but the journey doesn’t happen without a few headaches that eventually get resolved.

“When you got 50 people trying to argue about what they want for the design. Obviously we have the theme which is vacations but we ended up picking Easter Island because it was going to be relatively easy for us to do with a lot of first–years for the statue,” Jackie Mayrose of Summitt/WIE said.

Phi Kappa Tau has become the gold standard in the competition, racking up seven straight first–place finishes, and this year’s creation is going to take a lot of work.

“We use forms to put in snow and water and them make them freeze so that they’re nice and solid. We have to iron everything smooth when it gets done. There’s lots of slush work. We use special slush gloves and we have a slush tub for it. It’s a lot of work,” Ben Bartosh of Phi Kappa Tau said.

Winter Carnival features many different activities, but the students say that the snow statues are the focal point and definitely most popular.

“Because they’re so big and they’re just always there. You walk to class everyday and you’re going to pass half a dozen statues and then you drive downtown and you will see all the fraternities’ statues and everybody puts a whole lot of work into them,” said Mayrose.

“We always put in a lot of great effort. Our house, our guys…they give everything they have every year and we’ve just been fortunate enough to win every year because some of the other organizations put up fantastic statues and we just end up coming out on top,” said Bartosh.

The groups will be able to put the finishing touches on their statues tomorrow evening during the all–nighter. Thursday morning will be the big day when the statues get judged.