POCATELLO — Idaho State University is preparing to welcome students back to campus with its annual Welcome Back Orange & Black celebration, a three-hour event packed with giveaways, food trucks and live entertainment at Lookout Point.
The event will run from 4 to 7 p.m. at Lookout Point Aug. 24 and will feature 33 vendors and eight area food trucks.
Lookout Credit Union plans to give away 1,000 T-shirts to students, faculty and staff who show a Bengal ID. Last year, organizers said, the full supply of shirts was claimed in just 55 minutes. Roughly 2,500 people typically attend, many of them incoming freshmen.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for businesses to showcase themselves on the first day of school, and students to really walk away with a great experience,” said Stephanie Palagi, president and CEO of Historic Downtown Pocatello.
The Bengal Theater will hand out popcorn, and free popsicles will be available for the public. Attendees can also expect free water, chips, cookies and games or raffle prizes at individual vendor booths.
An emcee will also be on site throughout the afternoon, providing musical entertainment.
Idaho Central Credit Union will raffle off a MacBook package, collecting one entry per attendee at its booth before announcing winners on stage.
The vintage downtown trolley, first built in 1997, will run a continuous loop between Reed Gym and Lookout Point throughout the event, giving students an easy way to get to campus and back.
Woven into this year’s festivities is the fifth annual Rock Paper Scissors charity competition, hosted on stage by the Idaho State Journal and sponsored by Moat IT. In the contest, teams from local businesses face off in best-of-three rock-paper-scissors matches, with winners advancing until first- and second-place teams split money raised for charity. Over the past four years, the competition has generated more than $25,000 for organizations including United Way, the Boys and Girls Club of Bannock Valley, the Bannock Youth Foundation and SEICCA.
“Without Moat IT, we can’t do the event, and all the money that we raise is going right back to charity,” said Taylor Smith, advertising director for the Idaho State Journal. “The more teams we have to compete, the more we can get back to local charity.”
The competition will also crown ISU student winners for the first time. Lookout Credit Union is contributing $1,500 to fund scholarships of $1,000 and $500 for the top two student finishers, Smith said. Students can sign up at a booth during the Welcome Back event, and organizers will draw competitors from that pool to face off on stage immediately after the business rounds conclude. Organizers said either 16 or 20 students will take the stage.
Smith said folding the competition into Welcome Back Orange & Black was meant to raise the event’s profile and draw a bigger crowd than a standalone after-work gathering typically attracts.
“We tend to have more freshmen come, which is really what our target audience is,” Palagi said. “They walk away with a free T-shirt packet full of information about what to do and see in our community.”