Students and staff share their original Thanksgiving traditions.

Rebecca Batchelor, Freshman:

“Well, we get lots of sticks of butter and put them on Thanksgiving plates, and then, me and my little cousins and my sister and I, mold them into Thanksgiving themed things. We’ve done turkeys, cornuco-

pias, and pilgrims. Sometimes leaves because we run out of creative ideas, and then we use them. We put them on the Thanksgiving dinner table and we use them (to) butter rolls.”

Length of tradition: Five years.

Hayden Rickett, Sophomore:

“Every year, my family gets together and we take characters from ‘The Waltons’ and ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and everybody gets a character and a nametag and you have to be called that for the rest of the meal.”

Length of tradition: “Ever since I can remember.”

Holly Bohnett, CAB secretary:

“I’m the youngest of four, and all three of my older siblings are married and one has kids, so getting everybody together on the actual week of Thanksgiving is nearly impossible. We typically celebrate Thanksgiving not on the actual day to accommodate the in-law families. This year we are going to meet in the middle between Seattle and Searcy in Colorado Springs where my sister lives and celebrate Thanksgiving on a Tuesday a week before and pretend it’s actually Thanksgiving. The best part is that my brother, who lives in Searcy, and his wife and I are driving a Winnebago that they bought in Colorado back down to Searcy. We hope it works and survives the 18-hour drive, because we’re not sure it’s going to work all the way. We’re super excited that we have the one-way ticket there and then a fun way of transportation back.”

Length of tradition: Hopes to be ongoing from this point on.

Maggie Hlasta, Admissions secretary:

“My grandmother taught me as a kid how to make her crescent rolls from scratch, and I’m the only one of the grandchildren – there’s 11 of us – that learned how to make them. After she passed away, I started making them every year, and so I make them once a year and I only make them at Thanksgiving. I make usually two batches of them, and freeze them and mail them out to all the cousins and everybody so everyone has them for the holidays.”

Length of tradition: 10 years.