Kait Christensen | News Co-Editor

Every year, the graduating class donates a gift to the campus community. In the past, there have been gifts such as the clock in the Buena Vista University (BVU) forum and the beaver outside the Siebens Fieldhouse. The graduating class of 2013 has decided that their gift to the university will be a fire pit located outside of the Outdoor Recreation House.

“The senior gift for the class of 2013 is a fire pit, seating area, and hopefully grilling area behind the Outdoor Rec House. We’re talking about a full patio with stone fire ring in the middle and built in stone/cement seating surrounding it. Then if we have enough remaining funds we also hope to sink a BBQ into the patio, similar to the ones between Pierce and the field,” one of the leaders of the senior project Justus Harris said.

Four students, including Harris, were nominated to be chairs of the senior class campaign. These seniors are Seth Lindokken, Cassie Sinclair, and Kylie Swanson. They were the first to begin brainstorming what to give as a gift to the university.

Lindokken explained there were several facilities and steps to go through when working on the final decision.

“We had to work with Facilities, Student Affairs, and check with local authorities to make sure that our idea would be in compliance with local ordinances,” Lindokken said.

The chairs also made goals for how much their class should raise for the campaign.

According to the BVU website, the senior class campaign goal this year is to raise $2,500 and have a 100 percent participation rate.

The BVU website also continued to explain how Bernie Saggau, graduate of Storm Lake class of 1949, pledged to match each donation with his own donation of $25. ]

After several sessions of brainstorming amongst the co-chairs of the Senior Campaign, they had to look through several ideas and decide how much money needed to be raised and was available to the team. The co-chairs then had to take their ideas to faculty and staff.

Harris commented on the other steps the students had to take after approaching the faculty and staff.

“We then took a handful of ideas we came up with and all asked people we know what they thought of them, as well as input from faculty and staff. After much deliberation, we landed on the fire pit/gathering area because we thought it would get the most use, it would draw more people to that area of campus, and it was a great way to add to the beauty of BVU’s campus,” Harris said.

Nine more seniors took part in the project as team leaders. These seniors included Kyle Auffert, Brian Broll, Dominique Daily, Rachel Held, Whitney Nelson, Tyler Reed, Jarrod Roth, Troy Ticknor, and Meg Williams. Senior Keyla Calles Sosa was also involved in the publicity for the campaign.

Graphic by Keyla Sosa