The Garrison Center Ballroom was filled with music, dancing, and fun last Wednesday night as the Henderson League of Latinos and the Henderson Gentlemen’s League hosted Bachata Night.

Following the success of last spring’s Salsa Night, the League of Latinos in-vited dance instructor Leah Patterson to return and teach Henderson students some new dance moves.

Patterson described the bachata as a simpler version of salsa dancing that is a great introduction to Latin dancing. It is especially inviting because the bach-ata can be danced to more contempo-rary R&B music. Erikka Dominguez, president of the Henderson League of Latinos, put it in even simpler terms.

“It’s another way to shake your hips,” she said.

The event was also the first time that the League of Latinos and the Gentle-men’s League had co-sponsored an event together.

“All of the guys were really excited to learn the dance and try it out,” Le-roy James, president of the Henderson Gentlemen’s League, said.

Bachata Night also welcomed local high school students to partake in the dancing. Erin Watson, Gurdon High School Spanish teacher, brought her students as a fun and educational activ-ity outside of her classroom. Patterson, who has been teaching and dancing for over 15 years, was glad that the League of Latinos called her to come back for her second event at Henderson.

“Patterson’s dancing has often been described as sophisticated, sharp, pre-cise, imaginative, and even spiritual,” her official website said.

She had been a featured dancer in the dance company Descarga Caribe for several years, and she danced in coun-tries such as Spain, Italy, England, and China. In 2006, she helped Descarga Caribe achieve a top ten world ranking at the 2006 ESPN Salsa World Champi-onships. Patterson eased the students into the bachata. The lesson began by lining the 40 students up in rows, so

they could learn the three basic steps of the dance while watching Patterson and her assistants. After a few stumbles, the room became comfortable with the steps, and dancers paired off. Follow-ing a humorous reminder that there were high school students in the room, the pairs learned the final touches to the bachata then spent the next hour put-ting their new skills to practice to the rhythm of popular music.

As the dancing came to an end, Pat-terson thanked all of the students for their enthusiasm. She was also pleased that everyone had such a great time and was so willing to get into the dancing.

“I loved seeing so many energetic dancers. It was a great turnout,” Rob-ert Blount, one of Patterson’s regular students and assistants for the evening, said. “Henderson definitely brought a better crowd than when we did an event at UALR.”

The participants also enjoyed the evening.

“It was a great learning experience,

and it really brought these two groups together in a fun way,” said DeAndra Jones, sophomore human resources management major.

Ashley “Suzie Que” Bryant, sopho-more accounting major, enjoyed the les-son for a more practical reason.

“I really don’t know how to dance, so I was glad to learn some real moves,” she said.

Dominguez, a senior marketing ma-jor, said that the League of Latinos’ campus events don’t end with Bachata Night. The date for their main fundrais-er, “Tacos 4 Texts,” will be announced soon. “Tacos 4 Texts” raises money for Hispanics in the Clark County area and provides textbooks for them. As a sneak peek for “Tacos 4 Texts,” they will be offering “Taco Tuesday” in a few weeks. They decided to create the event because students were constant-ly asking League of Latino members when tacos would be available and they wanted to start building excitement for the “Tacos 4 Texts” fundraiser.

Starting on Feb. 10, Smith Hall el-evators became less of reliability. There were multiple incidents reported to maintenance about students being trapped on the elevators. At first, only one elevator worked, but later both of them were out of order. Maintenance workers have made several trips back and forth to Smith Hall to fix them. This past Saturday they were working on the elevators all day. Afterwards, only one elevator was still active, and students were still advised to take the stairs for safety. With the elevators out of order, using the stairs became a has-sle for most residents.

“Since I live on the eighth floor, it’s always a burden for me to take the stairs everyday,” Marissa Jackson junior

education major, said. “I don’t leave my room unless I have to.”

On the other hand, other residents find that using the stairs is not a prob-lem to them at all.

“It doesn’t bother me to take the stairs every day,” junior Kaitlin Stubbs, social science major, said.

Later on that week, three ladies got trapped inside the elevator.

“I was on my way down to the laun-dry room, and all of a sudden the el-evator started to shake,” an anonymous freshman mass media major said. “It would shake first and then drop.”

Thankfully, a resident assistant was there and reported it to the hall direc-tor and to maintenance. Maintenance workers had to ply the doors open in order for the girls to get out. About thirty minutes later, all three ladies were released.

“I was very nervous when the eleva-

tor dropped, and I didn’t think that I was going to get off anytime soon,” the freshman said.

No one was hurt during this inci-dent. However, anything could have happened.

“I’m glad that I did not get stuck in the elevators, because it would have been an uncomfortable situation for me,” freshman Ayanna Willis, psychol-ogy major, said. “Hopefully the eleva-tors will be fixed on Monday. Other-wise, I wouldn’t leave my room except for class.”

The broken elevators can cause many students not to want to leave their rooms for any reason besides class. This could cause a lack in participation, stu-dents being late for class, and possibly less attendance.

Maintenance workers are trying their best to fix the problem and hope to have both elevators working soon.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2014 HENDERSON STATE UNIVERSITY VOLUME 15, ISSUE 21

INDEX Features: page 2 | Diversions: page 3 | Sports: page 4

Student groups bring bachata to campus

J. Scott McKinnonStaff Writer

In The Fold

Sarah Miller will play Tilly in the student theatre perfor-mance “Melan-choly” written by Sarah Ruhl. It will premiere at HSU on Thurs-day, Feb. 20, in the Arkansas Hall Studio Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The show will replay Saturday at the same time.

68 43

Monday

61 45

Tuesday

68 55

Wednesday

72 37

Thursday

68 46

Friday

70 34

Saturday

64 36

Sunday

Sports

Find more news and information online at WWW.HSUORACLE.COM

Elevators continue to trap students, pose safety risk

Kiana WaitsStaff Writer

The student organization, Gay-Straight Alliance/GAIT, hosted the second annual drag ball in Ar-kansas Hall. Sev-eral men from the community dressed up and paraded across the stage.

>Page 2

*Photo by Ryan Klare

DANCE IF YOU WANT TO The League of Latinos and the Gentleman’s League came together to help the community learn the bachata dancing style. Reddie base-

ball, which kicked off the beginning of the month, played a home tournament this past weekend against South-eatern Oklahoma. The Reddies walked away from Clyde Berry Field victorious over the Savage Storm.

>Page 4

Features

Student cre-ators of MiS-SiLE discuss a self prison and being alone through Shake-speare’s play references.

>Page 3

Diversions

What do you get when you com-bine the sound of heels, the sparkle of rhinestones on a dress, and a fierce attitude?

You get a drag queen.Arkansas Hall was full of comedy

and good times this Saturday while hosting the second annual Drag Ball. The Drag Ball was sponsored by Henderson’s Gay/Straight Alliance, or GAIT. GAIT hosts the Drag Ball every year on Henderson’s campus to raise awareness of the LGBT cul-ture and promote equality through understanding.

Senior theater major and GAIT president Sarah Miller was in charge of organizing the event.

“The first time we held the Drag Ball, it was such a success,” Miller said. “We got a lot of good feedback from those who came.”

The Drag Ball first stated as a fundraiser, but after receiving such good feedback, GAIT decided to host the event every year.

Last year’s theme was “winter wonderland,” and this year’s theme was “love conquers all.”

Female impersonator Karma Kouture was one of the performers featured at Saturday’s show.

“I love doing drag,” Kouture said. “It’s always a very fun experience!”

Saturday was the first time that Kouture had performed in Hender-son’s Drag Ball.

“The show was a great success,” Kouture said. “All our performers were very dedicated and made every song count!”

Kouture, who lives and performs in Hot Springs, was joined by drag

queens and drag kings from all over the state.

Some of the featured performers were Diamond Rose, Gigi Galore, Gino Murano, Joshua Micheals, and Melody Braxton-Galore.

These men and women worked the stage with fierce attitudes and devilish humor that can only found in a drag performer.

“Everyone was really enter-tained,” Haden Ainsworth, sales as-sociate, said. “It’s good to see people

experiencing drag for the first time and having so much fun with it.”

Among those who were seeing a drag performance for the first time was freshman education major Justin Beaty.

“I had always wanted to see a drag show, but never got the chance too,” Beaty said. “When I saw the flyer on campus I got really excited.”

Beaty got a front row seat and got to experience the queens and kings up close.

“I had such a good time seeing the performers,” Beaty said. “I will definitely be coming back next year to see the show again.”

After the first round of profes-sional performers, the contest por-tion of the night, “So You Think You can Drag,” kicked off.

There was only one contestant, but that didn’t stop the show. The constant performed to one song and was judged by an “all-star panel” of judges.

These judges were female imper-sonator Gigi Galore, sales associate Haden Ainsworth, and professor of theater arts William Henshaw.

After the performance, the judg-es gave their critiques and opinions. The contestant won a prize for her efforts.

Female impersonator Diamond Rose told several jokes in the second portion of the show.

The room grew louder and loud-er with every joke Rose told.

“The jokes were absolutely hilari-ous,” server Jackie May said. “There weren’t many people, but it sounded like there were.”

Female impersonator Melody Braxton-Galore presented the final performance. Galore performed to the song “Beautiful” by musical art-ist Christina Aguilera.

As she performed, Galore took off her wig, jewelry, and eyelashes and began to write hurtful words on her arms.

“The performance made me cry,” Ainsworth said. “It was a very powerful message about not letting words get you down and to love yourself.”

Henderson’s second Drag Ball was full of laughter and even tears. Though the message was clear: love conquers all.

Students waited in the hallways of the Russell Fine Arts Center as the sound of a lone tuba billowed through the closed doors of the Harwood Recital Hall on Wednes-day night. The excitement of the soon-to-start performance by “Sotto Voce,” a tuba quartet, was growing.

The quartet consists of four visit-ing music instructors from colleges in Wis. and Maine. Their names are Mike Forbes, Nat McIntosh, Mark Carlson and Demondrae Thurman. They visit other colleges and hold master classes where music students perform and are critiqued.

Many of the students in the audi-ence took part in a master class.

“It was inspirational. They gave us a different perspective of music we had never seen before,” Aaron Schaefer, a junior music education, said before the start of the perfor-mance.

“Sotto Voce” is a tuba quartet, but only one tuba is played during the music sets. A tuba is a large brass horn.

“The tuba is often used as a base but is capable of playing a beautiful melody as an instrument,” Dr. Jamie Lipton, assistant professor of low brass, said.

In the first half of the perfor-mance, the tuba was accompa-nied by three euphoniums, another brass horn that resembles the tuba but slightly smaller. The selections played were some of the quartet’s own pieces, composed by Forbes. They also played some popular tunes composed by other artists.

The music was loud in the tiny re-cital hall, and the exertion of playing the large horns was evident. Often, the audience could catch the sound of the musicians taking deep breaths, and in between songs, the musicians would wipe the sweat from their foreheads. After each piece, a mem-ber of the quartet would stand up and quickly announce the next song

and give a little background about its inspiration or origin.

The second half of the perfor-mance followed an intermission, and during the break, students anticipat-ed what would come next.

Carlson had promised that the second half was going to be very different.

The quartet came out for the sec-ond half and played a short song.

Then, Thurman stood up and an-nounced that it was “time to put on your club hats.”

What followed was a song com-posed by John Stevens named “Di-versions.” It was a combination of blues, jazz, salsa and rock.

Next, three of the quartet mem-bers left the stage, leaving Forbes alone with his tuba. He started play-ing a solo.

Then, the sound of a trombone could be heard from the back of the stage behind the curtains. The other three members paraded back out on stage all playing trombones.

The quartet was playing a song called “St. James Infirmary,” a blues song of a deep and soulful rhythm, composed by Joe Primrose. It was a song that might bring a vision of a band playing in an old blues club from the 1930s.

The quartet ended with “Ars Moriendi” (The Art of Dying), a song filled with the sounds of thumping on their instruments and vocal mixing. It was a fusion of all the extremes that could be per-formed with the three euphoniums and tuba.

At the end of the performance, the tuba quartet was given a stand-ing ovation with shouts and whistles from the audience. Forbes thanked Henderson for the invitation to visit and announced the quartet’s plan to visit Norway on tour in the near fu-ture.

Many of the students were im-pressed with the performance.

“After hearing everything they said in the master class and now see-ing it in practical application really brings it all together,” Tyler Kelly, a junior music education major, said.

February 17, 2014

PAGE 2

Tuba show inspires students

FEATURES

Kenison HolmesStaff Writer

Zach BurnettStaff Writer

Gay-Straight Alliance/GAIT hosts Drag Ball

*Photo by Jeff Gilmore

DUDE LOOKS LIKE A LADY Diamond Rose took the stage during the second annual Drag Show, held in Arkansas Hall.

DIVERSIONS February 17, 2014

PAGE 3S

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OK

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Henderson State’s second-half ral-ly fell short as the Lady Reddies lost to Arkansas Tech 91-85 on Saturday in Russellville, Ark.

The Lady Reddies, 12-10 over-all and 8-8 in the Great American Conference, trailed by as many as 18 points midway through the second half but rallied to tie the score 84-84 with 1:28 remaining.

In the first half, Henderson State had a 26-23 lead with 10:07 to play, but the Lady Reddies struggled over the remainder of the half making just three field goals.

The Golden Suns, 12-9 overall and 8-7 in the GAC, finished the half on a 22-9 run to go into the locker room with a 45-35 lead.

In the second half, Arkansas Tech pushed its lead to 66-48 with 12:03 to play, but the Lady Reddies got a spark from Krystal Beachum as Henderson State rallied to cut the deficit to 70-62 with 7:45 to play.

Beachum scored 10 points during the run before fouling out with 4:22 to play in the game. Despite playing without Beachum, Henderson State was able to tie the game at 84-84 with 1:28 to play as Dulincia Keener split a pair of free throws.

However the Golden Suns were

able to regain the lead when Anissa Pounds hit a huge three-pointer and then converted a three-point play with 37 seconds left that gave them a 90-85 lead. Henderson State would not recover and the Lady Reddies would lose their fifth straight game.

Beachum led the Lady Reddies with 24 points going 9-for-9 from the field while Vanessa Pieper scored 17 points including five three-point field goals.

A total of five Lady Reddies scored in double figures with Jasmine Settles and Aungelique Sledge having 15 points each. Keener finished with 11 points and a team-best seven re-bounds.

The Lady Reddies finished the game shooting 42 percent from the field making 27-of-64 attempts. ATU was 31-of-54 for 57 percent shooting including 8-of-15 from three-point range.

Arkansas Tech held a 42-26 advan-tage in points in the paint, and a 24-3 advantage in bench points. The Gold-en Suns also had a 40-35 rebounding advantage. Arkansas Tech’s Anissa Pounds scored 24 points, going 5-of-9 from long range, while Caroline Eu-banks turned in a 21-point effort.

Henderson State will next play host to Southwestern Oklahoma, Thursday at the Duke Wells Center with tipoff set for 5:30 p.m.

Tadarious Hawkins’ sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 11th inning lifted Henderson State to a 5-4 win over Southeastern Oklahoma and sparked a double-header sweep of the Savage Storm on Saturday in Arkadelphia, Ark.

The Reddies followed with an 8-1 win over the Savage Storm to win the series.

The win snapped a seven-game losing skid for Henderson State as the Reddies improved to 2-7 overall and 2-1 in the Great American Confer-ence.

Trailing 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning of game one, the Red-dies put together a three-run rally that started off when Andy Kovarik was hit by a Mathew Benedict pitch.

Ashton Roberts then reached on error to put runners on first and sec-ond with no outs.

After Benedict struck out Hawkins and forced Carlos Rodriguez to fly out to left field, Joseph Gary doubled down the left field line to score the first run of the inning.

Lee Richardson then tied the game with a two-run single to right field.

In the Reddie 11th, Luke McGuire led off the inning with a single to cen-ter field and advanced to second on a balk by Nick Johnson.

Johnson then delivered a wild pitch that advanced McGuire to third.

Hawkins provided the Reddies with what they needed when he hit a line drive to left field that was deep enough to score McGuire with the game-winning run.

Luke Tebbetts pitched the final two innings for Henderson State to pick up his first win of his college ca-reer.

In the final game of the series, Henderson State scored two runs in the first and third innings to build a 4-0 lead.

Singles by Evans and Hawkins set the stage for Gary in the first inning as he blasted his second double of the afternoon to plate a pair of runs and put Henderson on top 2-0.

In the third frame, the Reddies

loaded the base before Andrew Reyn-olds smashed a single up the middle to score two more runs and increase the Henderson State lead to 4-0.

After SOSU scored a run in the top of the fourth, the Reddies an-swered with three runs in the bottom half as Gary reached on an infield sin-gle to advance Hawkins to third after he led off the inning with a walk and a stolen base.

Hawkins scored on a ground out by Ashton Roberts before Carlos Ro-driguez blasted a two-run home run

over the left field fence to make the score 7-1.

Colton Lorance picked up his first win of the season as the junior left-hander pitched six innings, scattering six hits and striking out three batters.

Gary had a huge day offensively for the Reddies as the junior from Rowlett, Texas had five hits with a pair of doubles and three RBI.

Henderson State will next travel to Russellville for a non-conference game against Arkansas Tech on Tues-day with the first pitch set for 6 p.m.

After an 11-1 regular season and perfect 10-0 conference record in 2013, the Reddie football team is looking for continued success next season.

One of the most important parts in establishing a powerhouse football team is recruiting.

Scott Maxfield, head coach, and his staff know this and have hit the recruiting road hard the last two sea-sons. Feb. 5 was National Signing Day across the nation, and the Red-dies inked 60 incoming recruits. Thir-ty players signed from Texas, a state that has produced Reddie stars such as Kevin Rodgers, Darius Davis and

Keaton Stigger. Arkansas saw 12 play-ers sign with Henderson, and Louisi-ana saw seven.

Two of the biggest holes that needed to be filled were on the of-fensive line and at the linebacker po-sitions. Offensively, the Reddies had one of the most prolific scoring of-fenses in all of college football last season, and the offensive line was a major part of that success.

Four seniors anchored that line in-cluding All-American center Kelton Hays who started for the last two sea-sons. Filling that void is going to be a challenge for the Reddies next season, but Maxfield is confident in his staff.

“We wanted to sign eight to ten of-fensive linemen,” Maxfield said. “We feel like we restocked there and got

some bigger guys that can be really good players for us.”

Notable signees include John Guerra, a 6-foot-4-inch, 300-pound transfer from Texas Tech, and Tucker Cross, a 6-foot-3-inch, 315-pound lineman from Mobile, Ala.

On the defense, linebacker was a key position that had to be addressed in this year’s recruiting class due to the departure of All-American senior Keaton Stigger and starter Ricardo Mendez.

“We brought in several linebackers and I feel we did a great job signing some very talented players that will have an immediate impact,” Maxfield said.

Maxfield was also pleased that he and his staff were able to sign a hand-

ful of players from the Florida area. Kendrick Calixte, a 5-foot-11-

inch, 174-pound defensive back from St. Cloud, Fla., and Richard Darius, a 6-foot-1-inch, 190-pound athlete from Plantation, Fla., are two of those players.

“This has been one of the greatest days of my life,” Justin Peters, a safety from Rockwall, Texas, tweeted after signing his national letter of intent.

There’s no question that Hender-son has become a hot spot for in-state and out-of-state talent.

The question is, can this team build on last year’s success and fight for a national championship next sea-son?

Stay tuned and find out, Reddie Nation.

SPORTSFebruary 17, 2014

PAGE 4

Reddies sweep the Savage Storm in two games

Reddies sign 60 recruits on signing day, 30 from Texas

Troy Mitchell Sports Information

TAKING THE WIN Third baseman, Will Powel, slides in to get a Southeastern Oklahoma player out in the game against the Savage Storm. The Reddies won 5-4 to Southeastern Oklahoma after trailing 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning but came back to take the win.

*Photo by Jeff GIlmore

Hunter LivelyStaff Writer

Troy Mitchell Sports Information

Lady Reddies couldn’t bridge gap against Tech

*Photo by Christine MoorePUSH IT Lady Reddie Dulincia Keener, a guard from Texarkana, Ark., runs the ball down the court to score. The Lady Reddies lost to Arkansas Tech but not without a fight. Keener was able to tie the game up with a pair of free throws but it did not stop the Golden Suns.