Written by Emma McDaris // Photo by Briley Kemper
Campus Life hosted a concert last week, inviting the student body to hear from an artist who started his career going viral over social media.
Mason Ramsey, a 17-year-old known for his viral 2018 yodeling video, performed in the Anthony Wright Administration Auditorium Jan. 23 at 8 p.m. for the Harding community. The office of Campus Life announced in the fall 2023 semester that Ramsey would be coming to perform at Harding and that Searcy native Silas Carpenter would open the show.
Director of Campus Life Jane Chandler coordinated the concert and had some takeaways from the student body’s reaction to the performance.
“I think the success of the concert showed that students have a wide variety of taste when it comes to music preferences,” Chandler said. “We haven’t had a country artist in a while, so I’m glad we were able to get someone who would attract people from the community, students who like country music and people who want to see someone they feel like they grew up with. It was sweet to see such a variety of people in attendance — some ticket holders drove five hours to be there. I hope we get to have similar events that continue to draw a wide demographic in the future.”
Members of Campus Life said they had very high expectations for the concert and how the student body would react. Senior Brenley Colbert said she was excited to announce Ramsey’s performance and what it meant for Harding.
“I am mostly looking forward to just hearing Mason perform all of his other songs and getting to say we had him here at Harding,” Colbert said. “I think everybody was shocked when we announced it, and I know everyone will bring so much energy to the concert itself.”
Junior Evan Carter supported the idea of bringing Ramsey to campus to get a wide variety of students together including country fans and those who watched Ramsey’s career go from yodeling in Walmart to signing his record deal.
“I am most excited for the fun vibes he is going to bring to the concert,” Carter said. “I know his Instagram has him always posting some fun things, and I know he will just bring a fun vibe to the concert. A lot of his songs are also so sweet, and I know there will be some girls in the audience who will probably be crying.”
The student workers of Campus Life help organize events such as concerts that will engage students and give them something fun and inexpensive to do on campus. Junior Lexi Earnheart said she remembered the process of contacting and getting Ramsey to Harding.
“So Mason has actually asked to play at Harding before as he has family who have attended before,” Earnheart said. “We talked about it early last fall and all decided that he would be a great choice that was a balance of a fun and good quality concert, as well as being already well known.”
Campus Life also announced that they created a system to notify students about events involving reminders via text message. Students who enrolled in these texts were entered into a raffle to meet Ramsey before his concert. Student workers saw this new system as an effective way to reach students and increase participation.
“I think our biggest goal with our recent text remind service we have been rolling out is that we want to make sure we are adequately marketing all of our events,” Earnheart said. “We never want someone to not know about an event we are throwing, so hopefully with this system we will eliminate some gaps we have seen in that regard.”
