Dancer pair braves days in Rec Hall

By Lily Henning
Collegian Staff Writer

Jeffrey Stack and Rachel Zargo sacrificed sleep and comfort for a weekend to give children with cancer hope for the future and the prospect of a cure for their disease.

Interacting with the children of the Four Diamonds Fund motivated Stack (junior-management science and information systems) and Zargo (junior-finance), who both know people who have suffered from cancer.

"My mom had cancer and she survived, but it's the kind of thing where you feel powerless when someone has the illness," Stack said. "Thon is empowering, though. To raise the money and to see the kids makes you feel like you can actually do something to make a difference."

By hour 23, around 5 p.m. Saturday, dancers Zargo and Stack, representing Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity, were still going strong.

"I'm feeling good, just really hungry," Stack said, although he had just finished dinner. He said his appetite had gone "haywire" because he did not know what time of day it was.

Zargo said she was feeling the effects of dancing for almost 24 hours straight, but that a foot massage and the morale of the crowd helped her to keep going.

"You have your ups and downs, but then you do the line dance and you see the kids and everyone here, and you remember why you are doing it," Zargo said.

Both Zargo and Stack said from around 3 to 10 a.m., things got quiet — and that's when the dancers' bodies began to ache and minds went numb.

"That's when you get really tired," Zargo said.

But there was always at least a small crowd of weekend revelers to keep things lively, Stack added.

At 9 a.m. yesterday, 36 hours into Thon, Stack was wandering around with a Subway cup full of water in hand, looking more than a little dazed and confused.

When asked what he had been doing for the past 36 hours and what special techniques he used to stay awake, Stack glanced around and saw two girls tossing a beach ball around. "I threw a lot — I mean a lot — of football," he said.

The early morning, Stack said, was the most difficult time. "It got surreal, everything just seemed a little blurry." After eating breakfast and seeing the growing crowd of supporters, he said he felt a little better.

Zargo returned from a bathroom break escorted by a morale committee member. She looked exhausted, but smiled and accepted a weary hug from Stack.

Just then the hourly line dance began. The movements were a little slower and faces more tired than in previous line dances, but the dancers still moved along to the rhyming lyrics, "Get rich Wall Street/like Blair Witch/We look like the school from Abercrombie and Fitch!/We will Thon on!"

Stack and Zargo sat this particular dance out but said the hourly dances helped to keep them energized — even when their bodies were screaming for just one moment of rest.

At hour 47 the dancers looked tired — but empowered. As they danced the last line dance, their faces revealed the triumph of a goal realized.

"It's a feel-good thing for everyone," Stack said.