People visiting Rec Hall this weekend for the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon could easily see dancers, captains and moralers on the floor, but it may have been harder to spot the volunteers behind the scenes. Looking closely, the easiest "behind-the-scenes" group to spot on Friday night was the OPPerations (OPP) committee. You just had to look for the chickens.

Conn Thieman (freshman-business), an OPP member, said the committee's chicken hats were actually KFC hats -- "Kids Fighting Cancer."

Zac Kuchta (freshman-premedicine), also an OPP member, said the hats make it easier to round up committee members when they're needed for a quick clean up.

"We clean up spills, pick up trash, clean the bathrooms," he said. "We also clear everyone to one side of the floor every so often to mop it. It gets pretty dirty."

When OPP mops the floor, members of the rules and regulations committee isolate sections of the dance floor by roping back everyone on the floor into half of the dance floor. Then OPP picks up stray pieces of trash, sweeps and finally mops the floor.

Amy May (freshman-finance), an OPP member, said the committee also does a lot of setting up and tearing down.

"We set up things on the stage, move tables when the dancers eat, and on Thursday night we set up the dancers' locker rooms," she said.

Students clad in red could be seen lining the hallways and the perimeter of the dance floor throughout the weekend. These students, members of the rules and regulations committee, periodically rotated positions to make sure everyone was safe.

"Basically, we make sure the kids are safe and no one's going in wrong areas," said Todd Wilson (sophomore-life science), a rules and regulations committee member.

Kristen La Rosa (freshman-journalism), a hospitality committee member, was working in "FTK Village," an Olympic-themed snack shack, on Friday night. She handed out water bottles, Gatorade, packages of crackers and energy bars to dancers who approached the stand.

"It's nice because sometimes they get hungry in between [meals], so we're open all 48 hours," she said.

La Rosa said the hospitality committee is in charge of feeding the dancers, families and captains during the weekend. They try to supply the dancers with high-energy foods, she said.

The communications committee had an information booth, complete with a lost and found, at the back of the dance floor for the dancers.

"If they have any questions about where to go or what to do, they can come to us," Dave Fortna (junior-crime, law and justice), a communications committee member, said.

As the dancers filed out of Rec Hall to collapse into their beds, OPP members planned to stay until 2 or 3 a.m., May said. First-time OPP member Jamie Tissue (sophomore-Spanish) said she wasn't bothered by the extra work.

"Looking around you see a lot of trash, but for the dancers not to have to worry about it, it's not too big a deal," Tissue said.