Alumna gains lasting friendship from 'Thon

I remember walking through White Building my freshman year in 1984 and seeing all the tired eyes, fatigued bodies, and pale faces. And I wondered why people who looked they way they did were smiling and laughing.

One of the kids came up to my friend who was dancing and put a Winnie the Pooh sticker on his T-shirt, then gave him a kiss and a smile. Even then, before I really understood, I felt that feeling that only comes by experiencing the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, and I knew that I wanted to be a part of it.

In 1989, as part of the Overall Committee, I was lucky enough to take trips down to the University's Hershey Medical Center to meet the staff, doctors, and "the kids".

On one of these visits, I met Chris. She was thirteen years old, had lost all her hair to chemotherapy, and had just lost her right arm at the elbow to her cancer.

We exchanged addresses and I was amazed to see her progress as she taught herself to write with her left hand and went on to write to me about all the normal teenage trials and tribulations.

Her cancer had been a minor setback and she was determined to go on and live her life.

She even commented that if she hadn't gotten her cancer she would never have made all the great friends she had met through dance marathon.

And as I returned to the Alumni Reunion Weekend this year, I heard that comment echoed by many of the families. If there is any good in their child's illness it is that they have met students who give so much, care so much and have become an important part of their lives.

Eight years later, that "kid" from Hershey who had become my friend met me in State College with her husband and her one-year-old daughter for the 1997 dance marathon.

I had been the maid of honor in her wedding and gotten the 2 a.m. call when Brittany was born.

My dreams for that little, bald, handicapped thirteen-year-old had come true.

For years, thousands of Penn Staters have become part of Dance Marathon so the kids can have a chance at life, and my friend Chris has done just that.

So, I want to say thank you to anyone who has been a part of dance marathon. Please know that you have made a difference.

Kristen Kaminski
1989 Overall Dance Marathon Committee

STRAIGHT issue just 'silly' in every respect

I have been keeping up with this whole STRAIGHT ordeal since its very beginnings. I've witnessed its initially-insignificant birth, observed its childhood development, and now it seems the entire campus is aware of STRAIGHT's adolescence -- its rocky, hormonally-imbalanced stumblings toward self-realization, if you will.

All I've ever really heard are two basic arguments regarding this issue: STRAIGHT does not deserve a charter because it is intolerant and/or pointless vs. STRAIGHT deserves a charter by virtue of free speech.

Let me be the first to cast the proverbial stones at both sides of the issue! The Undergraduate Student Government supreme court's decision was not just wrong, it was flat-out silly!

What's the purpose in denying an organization a charter just because it has no clear mission?

Like someone wrote so eloquently in the Opinion section a while ago, give STRAIGHT a chance -- a chance to prove exactly how pointless a pro-heterosexual organization is!

What are you afraid of, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Student Alliance?

A big article in the New York Times: "STRAIGHT organization forces Congress to deport all homosexuals out of United States?"

As far as the other side, I've already attacked it. STRAIGHT, as anyone with at least invertebrate intelligence should know by now, is as wrong and silly as the court's decision to deny it! I don't think I even need to mention the whole "we should all love each other" bit.

The operative word here is "silly." Penn State is just being silly. Students here are all worked-up in a tissy about a bunch of college Joes who want to proclaim their manliness.

Meanwhile, Montana freemen are playing with their guns and paranoia, gangs are murdering each other in the cities, abortion clinics are getting bombed in Atlanta.

You know, I'm thinking about starting my own organization. It's called STRIP, Students Tolerating Ridiculously Intolerant People.

Anyone wanna join?

Chris Martinez
sophomore-secondary education