The searchlights outside Rec Hall drew their beams across the overcast evening sky. A giant yellow inflatable dancer shimmied back and forth as jets of air shot out its fingertips. The kickoff of the 2001 Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon was moments away.

Friday, 6 p.m.

Inside, final preparations were underway. The floor looked like a honeycomb — the yellow-shirted moralers mingling around the clusters of white-shirted dancers sitting on the floor, getting their last bit of rest before the marathon began. The bleachers were bustling with spectators, awaiting the moment when the dancers would leap to their feet. Homemade signs of encouragement for the students on the floor shared wall space with the printed logos of Thon's corporate sponsors.

After a medley of movie dance clips and live dance performances, the overall committee chairs got their introductions. They dashed on stage like a football team, giving hugs and high-fives all around.

"Because of you, the child whose dream is simply to be able to go to school and play with her friends and not be sick is going to have that dream come true," said Walt Breuninger, Thon overall chair. "Because of you and everybody who's worked so hard this year to put this event together, all these kids and all their families are going to have the most fun weekend that they can imagine."

After a countdown at 7:05 p.m., Thon 2001 was off and dancing. Within minutes, the first balls of the evening bounced over the heads of everyone on the floor.

Friday, 7:30 p.m.

Thon dancers traditionally create their own "vanity plates" in the form of slogans pasted across their T-shirt backs. This year was no exception. The various rear-facing phrases alluded to the Four Diamonds cause, the children with cancer, the 48 hours, current pop songs and movies, or just some innuendo:

"Will Dance 4 $$"

"Carin' 4 Erin"

"Building Hope"

"Inthonmiac"

"It Wasn't Me"

"Devon's Angels"

"Massage My ARHS"

The back of Merritt Swallow's shirt read "Dancin' 4 Liz," referring to the name of the child her sorority — Theta Kappa Pi — was sponsoring. Merritt (junior-chemical engineering) is a childhood cancer survivor herself, who just happened to turn 21 Thursday.

In some of the first moments of the marathon, Merritt was spinning around, passing out stickers to decorate the shirts of nearby dancers.

She wore a pink lei, a pink bandana around her wrist and pink buttons — "Go Pink or Go Home" — to indicate her team for a new facet of Thon organized by the morale committee this year.

The different color teams earned points based on their members' participation in games and activities during "theme hours" throughout the event, said Dan Heist, Thon morale chair. The winning team's name will be engraved on the "Reach Within" plaque. Dan hopes the competition will become a yearly tradition.

An assortment of unofficial Thon traditions started to appear in the early hours. The Four Diamonds children, their siblings and student dancers alike picked up squirt guns and started sending streams of water in everyone's direction. But most dancers and visitors to the floor at Rec Hall didn't appear to mind getting doused a bit, or otherwise, batting away an approaching ball. Play circles began to form and some people threw balls back and forth between the floor and the bleachers.

Friday, 8:20 p.m.

After a premiere run-through with all the morale captains, Anne Cohen (sophomore-communications) — "Captain Tabasco" — took the stage to teach the 2001 Thon line dance. The usual mix of Penn State and pop culture references represented a look back at what has happened since last February. Anne taught the motions and lyrics by section, building up to the whole. Most of the people in Rec Hall tried to learn the routine.

One stanza baffled many dancers at first: "Subway series / Subway diet / Chad got pregnant / What a riot!"

Anne asked, "How many people don't know who 'Chad' is?" Lots of hands went up.

By 9:30, the dancers had most of the dance and its references down.

Friday, 11 p.m.

Tall plywood tables were carried out, and dancers queued up for food. Local band Poptart Monkeys provided some live music, but many on the floor appeared annoyed when the band turned up the volume and the main Rec Hall lights suddenly went out for a while. Dancers and moralers took advantage of some downtime to visit with family and friends at the orange-fence barrier between the floor and the bleachers.

At 11:20, everyone got a chance to prove they still remembered the line dance moves, and then moralers prepared for the first "theme hour," dedicated to Las Vegas. Classic movie clips from films about "Sin City, USA" flashed across the overhead screens and an Elvis impersonator came out. There was a "chapel of love," karaoke and hula-hoop contests, and fake-money casino games.

Merritt paused from the action to give an update on how Thon was going for her. A few moments earlier, she had accepted a round of hugs from her fellow sorority members who were on duty.

Merritt, who used to lead fitness classes at Penn State, didn't struggle with the line dance too much. "I knew it right from the start," she said with a smile. "I'm a fast learner." However, she did agree that the routine felt harder than last year's: "They're trying to make us stretch."

She didn't get a few of the references in the line dance, but she was proud to point out that she did figure out the pregnant chad allusion before most people.

Her parents were scheduled to arrive mid-Saturday, bearing promised birthday gifts. In the meantime, she said she was playing with some of the children.

"I tried to teach one how to hula-hoop but he was so little," she said. "It would hit the ground right away."

Merritt was also eyeing the "chapel of love," where the school mascot posed for photo ops. "I think I want to get married to the Nittany Lion. I don't know who's receptive to that, but we'll see."

In her waist pack, Merritt was equipped with just the bare essentials - a CD player, hairbrush, camera, and a stuffed green frog she received for her birthday.

As Friday silently turned into Saturday, Merritt said she was feeling great and wasn't desperate for too many distractions: "I don't need toys yet. I'm still too wired."

Saturday, 11 a.m.

Outside Rec Hall, the weather was partly sunny and brisk with off-and-on flurries. The higher-numbered dancers were taking their second round of "Bathroom Breaks." They ran through a gauntlet of cheering students, took a running slide onto a long mat sprinkled with baby powder, and got a 10-second massage from a pack of friendly hands.

On stage, four mop-topped singers in black suits with British-sounding accents rocked out to classics that were first popular before Thon was even around.

"The Beatles" — really a tribute band called "Beatlemania Now" — offered many of the parents who were on hand a trip down memory lane, not to mention "Penny Lane." The current resurgence of interest in the '60s superstars' music was evident as people of all ages jived together to such appropriate numbers as "A Hard Day's Night" and "All You Need Is Love."

Saturday, 12:15 p.m.

Morale captain Brian Waksmunski called on the dancers and moralers to start organizing themselves into what would be the unofficial "world's largest hug."

The morale color teams grouped up individually, and then merged into each other to form one continuous loop — or in the words of Brian, "an amoeba" — that expanded to fill most of the Rec Hall floor. Students who were in place early had to wait for minor problems to be straightened out, with Brian leading from the stage. The orange team passed the time by giving each other impromptu back rubs.

The whole process lasted a little more than the allotted 20 minutes, and the new record was about 1271 people "hugging" for 10 seconds — though, Brian incorrectly said "971 people" at the time.

A cheer came up from the floor, but from the looks of many dancers, it appeared many were relived it was over.

Saturday, 3:30 p.m.

While the dancers participated in a theme hour with a Caribbean theme, Merritt Swallow was stretching her legs and hanging out with her family. Her parents said they arrived after noon, and her sister, Katy (sophomore-business administration), also dropped by for a visit, even though her shift as a moraler wasn't going on.

Merritt's mother, Celia, passed around a scrapbook of pictures and notes she made for her daughter's 21st birthday.

Merritt echoed some of her fellow dancers' disappointment with the hug activity.

"That needed to go," she said. "That was probably the biggest waste of time. I was second in line for the bathroom, and they basically kicked me out and said, "You have to go out for the big hug."

Standing in one place crammed together with other people who haven't had a shower in a while wasn't too appealing, she said.

Merritt did really enjoy the Beatles cover band. She said it was great to see everyone dancing along and singing the words, adding that she thought Beatlemania Now was much better than the Poptart Monkeys, which played Friday night.

Merritt said she was holding up pretty well overall.

"We haven't even been here 24 hours yet," she said. "I haven't changed my sneakers. I haven't had anything iced. I'm holding out till the last possible second. I feel really good."

Sunday, 11:30 p.m.

The piles told the tale. Everything that had accumulated around the perimeter of the gym floor looked like the evidence of a very long day at kindergarten: drink bottles, bubble makers, bags of chips, crayons, play clay, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, mini baseball bats, jump ropes, and water guns. Thon operations volunteers pushed big brooms, trying to keep the floor swept during the final hours.

The last "Bathroom Break" finished up, but lots of dancers continued to wait for longer massages behind the bleachers. Some of them bent over the tables, their feet barely touching the ground, their eyes blinking back sleep. Vacant stares were in abundance.

Sunday, 12:45 p.m.

Another round of the line dance brought back the enthusiasm for many, as more visitors crowded into the stands.

For Merritt, early Sunday morning had been the toughest part of the marathon to get through. "I was insane. I didn't know up from down, right from left," she said.

By many reports, some dancers were tearing up and crying from exhaustion. But an "awesome" massage from one of Merritt's friends made things a little more bearable.

"It's almost over," she said. "I just wish I was a little more sane right now. My feet really hurt. I've got them all taped up and everything."

Merritt said one year as a Thon dancer was going to be enough for her. Next year, she might take on a job that offers "a little bit more freedom," even though it was nice to be able to call on other students nearby to fetch her things.

Like most dancers, Merritt was looking forward to homemade food and sleep, but not before hearing stories from the Four Diamonds families and the ultimate finale at 7 p.m. when all 48 hours finally pay off.