Willie Warhawk turns 150
Campus celebrates mascot with food, music, fireworks
Willie the Warhawk plays a bag toss game with students and community members at his Birthday Bash.
September 10, 2018
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater celebrated Willie the Warhawk’s 150th birthday on Sept. 7. The event was the culmination of many people’s time and effort throughout the last few months.
The event featured tons of food, live music by the Roadhouse Chiefs, the Guiness Book of World Records breaking 150 meter glow stick created entirely by the UW-W chemistry department, and was capped off by a fireworks display. Hundreds of people including staff, students and community members attended the event.
“I think it is really cool,” UW-W freshman Sam Phillips said. “So many people came out to celebrate and it shows how much of the community actually cares about the college too.”
Many aspects of the Birthday Bash allowed the community to participate as well, including the reveal of the record breaking glow stick and the lighting off of the fireworks display. A group of about ten children had winning raffle tickets that allowed them to go out and set off the fireworks display.
The talk of the night was the entirely home-made, world record breaking glow stick. All 150 meters were laid out around the track, and people were allowed to go down and break the glow stick to light it up.
Warhawk Willie celebrates with community members, cherishes with a hug.
“It really has been such a long time coming at this point,” said Ory Savchuk, one of the main chemists involved in the creation of the glow stick. “I’m so ready for it to happen.”
The student-run event took many months of planning and work by many people involved in the
night.
“There were many highlights for the night,” Whitewater Student Government President Tom Kind said. “The people who brought the event together, the collaboration and the fact that this was a student run celebration for our 150th anniversary. There are dozens of people who deserve credit for the success we had.”
After all was said and done, the event was a great success not only for the people who attended, but also for the ones who made it happen in the first place.
“We fed hundreds of people, we had live music, we broke a world record and we watched a beautiful fireworks display,” said Kind. “In my mind, the event was perfect.”
