William James
The Broadside
The buzz around campus is that snowboard enthusiasts all over Bend haven’t gotten their fill of snowboarding skill with the end of the Bend Winterfest.
The Associated Students of Cascades Campus and The Associated Students of Central Oregon Community College have announced that they will work together to coordinate and partially sponsor a Rail Jam, scheduled for April 17, behind the Boyle Education Center on the COCC campus. However, as Jessica Scott, who is the president of ASCC says, Winterfest wasn’t actually the core inspiration for the event.
“Definitely not,” Scott said, “In fact, Winterfest didn’t even come into my mind until I was picking the event company I was bringing in and especially not after their event this year which was a big jump, our emphasis is on rails and boxes, on jibbing.”
Scott does offer credit to the group called Galvanic Design, who will be hosting the joint-government effort, and their success with the Cricket Rail Jam Tour as the inspiration for the idea.
Scott and the new ASCOCC Events Director Heather Madden saw this as perfect for collaboration between ASCC and ASCOCC.
“Since we’re on the same campus,” Madden said, “It’d be nice to have the two bodies collaborate for the betterment of the students.”
Another thing that the two student governments want to see happen is an opportunity for the clubs at COCC to spread their message at the Rail Jam.
Matt Coito, ASCOCC’s Club Coordinator, sat down with the various clubs and discussed the possibility of selling refreshments to raise money.
The Rail Jam will be a 16-thousand dollar effort, with eight-thousand dollars coming from the coffers of both ASCC and ASCOCC.
The event is free to the public. The eight thousand remaining could potentially be made up through the use of local sponsors, though no names have been confirmed.
“What I’d really like,” Madden went on to say, “Is to bring students from both COCC and OSU-Cascades together in a show of unity.”
Certainly this event does have an air of unity and togetherness surrounding it which is a big part of the snowboarding sub-culture.
The COCC Rail Jam will take place behind Boyle on April17.
You may contact William James at [email protected]