Once a year, students take a sledgehammer to their stress and problems. 

“Basically, people suck; life sucks, but it’s okay. I got to smash a pumpkin,” student Ellie Dean said. “I feel so much better, actually.”

Letting students take out stress on pumpkins, Housing and Residence Life put on the fourth annual Pumpkin Smash event on Henderson Field, ahead of the Halloween weekend.

Students had many stressors that brought them to the event, including people, college and even just that they work with pumpkins. 

The event began at 4 p.m. and went until they ran out of pumpkins. It was Assistant Area Coordinator Brodee Howard’s first time running the event. 

“Seeing them having a good time with it – I call this a success,” Howard said. “Everybody’s out here hanging out, having a good time. People are just drawing on pumpkins, some people are out here to smash pumpkins.”

“I did some negotiating; I talked to some people. I got the biggest pumpkins we could find. I wanted to get better hammers; I wanted people to pop out here,” Howard said. “I feel a little bit better after I destroy something.” 

The Pumpkin Smash offered a closer and free alternative to a rage room, which allows people to pay to destroy things. 

Howard’s hope for the students that came to the event was to allow them to work out the stress they may be feeling heading into the last couple weeks before break. 

The event allowed students to write or draw anything on the pumpkins that they wanted, which ranged from serious topics of stress to silly pictures of characters from cartoons to self-portraits. 

Howard said that coming to events like this is a great way to get involved on campus. Going to events like this is very important for “deepening your connection to campus and making your college experience something special.” 

He said that events like the Pumpkin Smash make Marshall stand out. 

“I’ll be honest, you don’t really find events like this somewhere else,” he said. “This is something that you can only experience here and now.