Some students took a break from the stress of schoolwork and the looming end of the semester to participate in a Paint and Sip event honoring the victims of the 1970 plane crash Wednesday. 

The Paint and Sip event, organized by Marshall University’s Office of Student Activities and occurring in the Don Morris Room of the Memorial Student Center, was a little different from the typical reoccurring Paint and Sip events. 

Typically, the designs to paint are decided on by the Office of Student Activities as well as the Campus Activities Board by looking at trends online and listening to student suggestions to figure out what is popular with the students and what the members think students will enjoy the most. However, this specific Paint and Sip event did not include popular trends. 

The design for the night that students learned to paint was a “Starry Night” version of the Memorial Fountain, and it has become a tradition for the Office of Student Activities to have this event and painting every year on the day before the fountain ceremony, according to Raul Moreno, advisor for the Office of Student Activities. 

“When we first started painting the fountain for a Paint and Sip event, we knew we wanted to make this specific design a tradition,” Moreno said. “So now, the day before each fountain ceremony, we host a Paint and Sip event to paint the Memorial Fountain and do what we can to honor the 75.” 

In the beginning, the painting was just the fountain on a plain background, but now the design changes to a different background each year, and this year was a background inspired by Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”  

Toby Hartwell, a senior applied mathematics and secondary education major who participated in the event, said it was a great way to take a break from schoolwork and do something fun with friends. 

“Getting to do something on campus that wasn’t going to class was really fun,” Hartwell said. “It was nice to take a break from school for a little bit, and this is a stress-free activity, so I liked it a lot, and I had a lot of fun tonight.” 

Moreno said getting to see the smiles on students’ faces when they leave an event like this is the most rewarding part of what he does. 

“It’s nice to see the big smiles on students’ faces when they leave our events, because not only did we get to help them do something fun but they get to forget, at least for a little bit, about stress and schoolwork and do something fun with their friends,” Moreno said. 

The next Paint and Sip event is scheduled for 7 p.m. Jan. 30 in the Don Morris Room of the Memorial Student Center. 

Julianna Everly can be contacted at [email protected].