Centralight

CMU Today as they planned and managed the second annual Mount Pleasant/CMU Gus Macker Basketball Festival in April. Students learned the ins and outs of event management About 38 students took a two-credit course, "Organization and Administration of Basketball Festivals," taught by Tim Otteman and Lori Irwin. Students were commercial and community recreation majors and event management minors. While learning the academic foundations of festival management, students also became the administrative team responsible for each of the competitive courts; special events such as the three- point, free-throw and dunk contests; recreational activities like infl atables and the climbing wall; and opening ceremonies. In addition to the students earning credit, some CMU students such as ROTC cadets were involved with security, while others assisted with pretournament registration functions. management, it also gave us the ability to step back and let them actually run the event," Otteman says. • "Not only did this class give us the opportunity to train students in a particular area of recreation and event Game on War-time treasure A wispy wedding dress in CMU's Museum of Cultural and Natural History carries with it stories of war and waiting and heroism. Bill Blamer, '43, made a trade with another soldier in Germany to get a parachute to mail to his fi ancée, Bernice Filer, '44. Retrieved parachutes were special, and brides considered it patriotic to have their wedding dresses made from parachute silk. Bernice spent months taking apart the parachute's seams and nylon tubing, and she had the dress carefully sewn from the silk. Then she waited for the call that Bill would be home on leave. Bill served in General Patton's 3rd Army Medical Corps, helping to rehabilitate injured soldiers. He earned a Bronze Star in the Battle of Bastogne for evacuating casualties. Bill arrived home for leave on a snowy January day and married his bride one week later on Jan. 19, 1946. Bernice Filer Blamer passed away in April 2008. Bill Blamer resides in Flint, Mich. And Bernice's wedding dress is carefully stored in CMU's museum, which houses more then 700 textiles of historical and cultural interest – an impressive collection for such a small- spaced museum, says Angela Riedel, collections manager. The Museum of Cultural and Natural History received a $6,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to re-house and preserve the textiles collection. • 22 centralight summer '10 PHOTO BY PEGGY BRISBANE

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