Written by Jessica Ardrey
Thursday morning during chapel, Student Association president Bryan Clifton got up to make what everyone thought would be another announcement about another planned activity for the student body. Then the slideshow started. Old pictures of Dr. David Burks came on the screen, and two students came out from backstage carrying a cake with lots of candles. The chapel audience sang “Happy Birthday” to Burks and gave a resounding round of applause at the end.
However, Nov. 5 is not Burks’s birthday. It is his half-birthday, and the SA decided to celebrate it.
“Burksday,” as it was officially named, had been in the works for about six weeks. The idea came out of an SA retreat. They wanted to celebrate Burks’s birthday, which is May 13, but since it is in the summer, there was no opportune time to do so.
“So we decided to change it up and go for a half-birthday, and it kind of falls at a time of year when people need a bit of a pick-me-up. Everybody’s looking forward to Thanksgiving Break, so we needed some excitement to spice things up a little,” Clifton said.
The surprising part is that Burks had absolutely no idea about any of this until the 9:00 a.m. chapel presentation. Needless to say, he was a little shocked.
“I didn’t know a thing in the world about it … I’d never even heard of a half-birthday!” Burks said. “The idea was brand new to me.”
In order to keep him in the dark, Nate Copeland filled Burks’s schedule with fake items and made sure he would be in town.
“It was not as hard as I expected,” Clifton said. “A whole lot of people knew about it, yet it never got around to Dr. Burks.”
Burksday was celebrated with banners, balloons and a half-birthday party that night in the cafeteria. The SA also sold T-shirts with Burks’s face on them.
The party had cake, more balloons and Dr. Burks Jeopardy, complete with categories like “Deep Dark Secrets” and “Burksisms.” Burks, Clifton and senior Julya Bentley competed against one another, answering questions such as “Who is the only person to ever strike fear into the eyes of Chuck Norris?” (Dr. Burks, obviously).
Burks, however, did not win the game. Bentley did.
“I needed to be quicker than Julya,” Burks said. “She was too fast. She’s been at our home Bible study for four years. She ought to know better,” he added jokingly.
Despite the loss, he was still in good spirits, sporting one of the black-and-gold Burksday T-shirts.
“It’s fun, and I love the fact that people enjoy having a good time,” Burks said.
The overall response was very positive. Burksday was the topic of conversation all day, the cafeteria was packed for the party, and the SA sold more than 1,000 T-shirts.
With all this success, will Burksday become a yearly celebration?
“I don’t know if it can be a traditional thing because he’ll be expecting it,” Clifton said. “It’s kind of a one-time deal. Still, I think it went over really well, and we got a lot of good laughs out of it.”
