02/29/2016 issue

@HSUORACLE www.hsuoracle.com

Henderson State University — Monday, February 29, 2016 Volume 110, Issue 20

DRAG IT OUT Local drag queens take over the stage P. 4

THE ORACLE

THE ORACLE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF – Moe Skinner FACULTY ADVISER – Mike Taylor COPY EDITOR – Madison MacNew NEWS EDITOR – Carmin Wills SPORTS EDITOR – Dom Cella VIEWS EDITOR – Dax Guilliams VIEWS EDITOR – Jae-Kur Lockhart PHOTO EDITOR – Joshua Bradley PAGE DESIGNER – Melanie Cole AD DESIGNER – Chris Sharp GRAPHIC DESIGNER – Jordan Jones

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UNCONTROLLABLE CLIMATE The unpredictable temperatures and attitudes of classrooms

HOLDING THE CROWN Mariah Brown is crowned Miss HSU 2016

ART IN THE NUDE Natasha Cribbs models for life drawing class

A BIRTHDAY WIN

Victoria Stewart leads the Lady Reddies in last week’s game

ONLINE EDITOR – Ashley Smith BUSINESS MANAGER – Coley Henson

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Have an opinion on an issue or response to what we said? Just want to rant about something for a while? Write us at ORACLE@HSU.EDU. We want to hear what you think. Hell, if it doesn’t suck, we’ll publish it in next week’s issue. Try to keep it between 400 and 600 words. Just like your Tumblr, we ignore anonymous submissions.

COVER Melody Braxton-Galore hosts the fifth annual drag show in Arkansas Hall.

PHOTO BY DYLAN MCNEIL

ONLINE STORIES Make sure to check out our other featured stories online at www.hsuoracle.com.

SIGMA ALPHA IOTA SPOTLIGHT SCIENTIFIC THEFT

FELLOW BLOGGERS If anyone is interested in having their personal blog published, feel free to email us at ORACLE@HSU.EDU. If we don’t find it absolutely obnoxious, we will be happy to let you have a chance to share your words.

FEB. 29, 2016

FEATURES

VIEWS

SPORTS

IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE

Inconsistent temperatures leave students frazzled STORY BY PETE TUBBS — PHOTO BY SCOTT MCKINNON As many students have experienced first hand, there is a big problem with the temperature in several buildings on campus. Both students and faculty alike are concerned with the potential health problems that could come about for students who have classes in these increasingly uncomfortable buildings.

The buildings having problems are Evans, McBrien, Reynolds, Wells, and Russell Fine Arts. The cause of the high heat and humidity stems from a number of repairs being conducted on the campus chilled loop system, which controls the air conditioners in the buildings.

Students have not been quiet about the issue, and some have voiced their impatience on what they feel they deserve from the institution, which they have given so much to.

“I just feel really annoyed that this is what our money is going to,” Ashton Bobbitt, freshman, pre-nursing major said. “It’s just like we pay so much just to be in these really hot rooms, it honestly makes it hard to focus on class work.”

“Senators expressed concern for the thousands of students subjected to buildings without climate control,” according to the notes of the February faculty senate meeting.

The pressing matter has been going on for weeks, and due to the unpredictable weather that comes with residing in Arkansas. Where the weather can go from uncomfortable to unbearable on the dayto-day basis.

According to the meeting notes, administration evidently told Lea Ann Alexander, director of Huie Library and the faculty senate presi-

dent, to contact Glen Jones, university president, for the purpose of him handling the needs of people concerned about the climate control crisis.

The report also stated, “The Senate requests consistent, advance notification for planned outages of critical climate control functions so that faculty and staff in affected buildings may prepare.”

A motion was passed during the senate meeting, proposing a system in which instructors could reserve spaces in buildings that are not affected by the temperature problem for some of their classes.

This is only a temporary solution, however, and it could cause several problems and loss of class time because of the time it would take in relaying room changes to the students, and keeping track of which facilitator has reserved which room.

Alexander said, that she doesn’t mind the repairs because they will help in the long run. However, she also said that the problem affects everyone, including faculty, students, workers and anyone else on campus.

She said she believes that the ones behind the repairs thought that this would truly be the best time of the year to conduct the work, and that they could not have foreseen the much warmer than expected weather.

Based on discussions in the faculty senate meeting report, the problem will not be fixed for up to four more weeks. Alexander remained hopeful, however, and said she was looking forward to the improvements that the repairs will make.

HAZARD — Construction continues moving forward on chilled loop system.

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BIG PUMPS BIGGER LUMPS Fifth Annual Winter Drag Ball

STORY AND PHOTOS BY DYLAN MCNIEL Big hair, Big lashes, and glitter, Henderson’s Gay Straight Alliance hosted its fifth annual Winter Drag Ball in Arkansas Hall Saturday evening and it was sickening. The reigning Miss Gay Arkansas, Eden Alive and her co-host Melody Braxton- Galore emceed the event.

The night was filled with excellent entertainment from local Arkansas drag queens and kings, such as: Tesssa Martinez, Victoria J. Adroe, Emmett Truths, Pat McCooter, Beau Davis, Abs Hart, as well as the hosts themselves. There was also a “So You Think You Can Drag” portion where students from Henderson put their skills to the test.

Students that participated this year were Charles McGee, freshman psychology major, also known as Trixie and Haley Johnson, freshman biology major. Both gave very lively performances, but McGee was chosen as the winner.

“This was the first time I’ve ever done it and I loved it,” McGee said, “I would definitely do it again.”

It felt amazing to perform, it transforms you, and you get out of who you are and become a character, it was a spur of the moment decision and that he’d just tried on the dress the day before, McGee said. He hopes that more people will get involved next year.

“When people make it rain on you it reaffirms that you’re doing good, and that this is ok,” McGee Said.

Eden Alive, former Assembly of God minister and former theology student has only been doing drag for about three years now and enjoys doing her

duties as the current Miss Gay Arkansas. She said she has experienced a few other events, and she would like to see it happen on more college campuses.

Henderson’s Winter Drag ball is one of the biggest.

“I hope events like this will help people learn to be proud of who they are,” Alive said, “I feel like our biggest responsibility as a drag artist is to destroy the constructs of social norms so that people feel empowered by their uniqueness.”

Her husband, Abs Hart, also said he had a good time preforming. He started performing as Abs Hart in 2010 in Oklahoma, and moved to Little Rock in 2011 where he currently performs at Triniti and Discovery Night Club. He also competes in the USofA M.I. (Male Illusionist) system and currently holds the title Mister Southern States USofA M.I. and runner up for the National Mister USofA M.I. title.

“I hope that tonight helps inspire people to use their creativity in whatever form it takes, and that it’s ok to be themselves,” Hart Said.

The ball was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen but I loved every second of it. I couldn’t stop laughing the whole time, I laughed so hard I cried, Grace Dane, sophomore art education major, said.

“When Eden Alive did the jump splits, it gave me all the life I needed,” Dane said.

HALL QUEEN — Charles McGee, Trixie, rocks out Arkansas Hall.

SETTING THE STORY — Melody Braxton-Galore talks about the actors in the next performance.

FEB. 29, 2016

NEWS

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SPORTS

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A NEW

REIGN

Miss HSU 2016

STORY BY MYKAYLA ARNOLD PHOTO BY KRISTINE MOORE

QUEEN BROWN — Mariah Brown, contestant five, happily allows former queen Brooke Cornelius to pass down her crown.

On Thursday, February 25, the legacy of Miss HSU began a new reign. Vying for the honorable title and over $10,000 of scholarships, seven contestants anxiously rose to the occasion. The former Miss HSU, Brooke Cornelius, set the stage for performance with an opening number to Demi Lovato’s song titled “Confident.” Alongside Cornelius were her princesses Avery Fielding and Blaise Childress.

After the opening act, the contestants entered from stage left and the crowd enthusiastically responded to them. Ricki Rebollar, resident hall coordinator, served as emcee and introduced the contestants as they showcased their physical appearance and talent. The ladies were also judged upon their response to an onstage question as well as an interview before the pageant. As the night came to a close, the judges tallied their votes and a new Miss HSU was crowned.

“Although my time as Miss HSU has come to a bittersweet end, I am extremely proud of all of the young ladies who competed for the crown,” Cornelius said. “I love Henderson, this experience has been one that I will cherish forever.”

Contestant number five, Mariah Brown, was crowned the 57th Miss HSU. Brown also left the stage with the overall talent and community service awards.

“I am so excited for our new Miss HSU, Mariah J. Brown. She was stunning, confident and exudes everything that the Miss Arkansas Organization represents.

I am proud of each contestant for their grace, poise, intelligence and outstanding talent,” Miss Arkansas Loren McDaniel, said.

“I’m honored to have been a part of the rich tradi-

PLAY YOUR HEART OUT — Caleb Williams promotes his music while the judges prepare their results.

tion that lies within the title of Miss HSU,” Madison McCaslin, junior psychology major, said. McCaslin was named first runner-up.

Dominique Walker, sophomore psychology major, was named second runner-up and Miss Congeniality. Arielle Michael, sophomore pre pharmacy major, was named third runner-up and overall swimsuit. Robin Campbell, senior education major, was named forth runner-up.

“This was my first preliminary pageant. I was so excited to participate and I learned so much from this group of girls,” McCaslin said. “I gained so much confidence, Henderson is definitely the school with the biggest heart.”

Brown will travel to Hot Springs this summer to represent Henderson in the Miss Arkansas pageant.

Her platform entitled, “Mentoring Matters: Closing the Mentoring Gap to Help Youth Succeed” is motivating youth to reach their highest abilities and pursue higher education. She believes mentoring is the only way college students can close the mentoring gap to help youth succeed.

Over the past year, Brown has faithfully worked with the Big Brother Big Sister Foundation as well as the Miss Teen Promise Foundation. “I am very excited to be on HSU campus getting students involved as mentors,” Brown said.

“I am so happy and full of joy. Being the first graduate student named Miss HSU is unbelievable. It has always been my dream to be Miss Henderson State University,” Brown said. “Now, my dream has come true, I cannot stop smiling because this moment seems so unreal.”

SHARING HER TALENT — Claire Howard shares her soothing voice with the audience.

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IN THE BUFF

Natasha Cribbs steps out of her comfort zone STORY BY MOE SKINNER — PHOTO BY CHRIS SHARP — DRAWING BY WILLOW HINSON Draped with only a robe covering her unmentionables, one brave senior dresses for her part-time gig by actually stripping off her garments instead of actually having to hunt up a clean corporate uniform.

With seven fellow art students sketching her weekly, this digital art major has a job unlike any other across campus.

Behind locked doors, Natasha Cribbs added “partially-nude model” to her resume.

“It’s not like oh look — she’s naked,” Cribbs said.

They’re looking at me and looking back at their paper, sketching. It’s not about me, that is their work, their job.

Cribbs was naturally nervous when she first began modeling in early February. At first she wasn’t sure if her friendship with the others in class would make her experience weird. In an afterthought, Cribbs said she found it easier to pose in front of her friends.

Her friends have found the same to be true.

“I feel like drawing our fellow students has helped bring us all closer together as a student body,” Yvette Ledbetter, senior art education major, said.

The artists collectively agree that drawing a live subject is a contrast comparison to still-life drawing.

“I’ve had life drawing classes before,” Joshua Emery, senior studio art major, said. “That being said, it is always a challenge.”

It is different for everyone, Cribbs said.

It is always good to stretch beforehand.

The models are expected to hold their poses for about 20 minutes throughout the four hour class.

“For me, it’s just best if I find something and just stare at it,” Cribbs said. “I find myself daydreaming — wondering how much time is left.”

HOLD STILL — Natasha shows her posing process fullly clothed.

FEB. 29, 2016

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YOUTUBE’S UNFAIR POLICY

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OPINION BY DAX GUILLIAMS — PARODY IMAGE BY JORDAN JONES BASED ON AN IMAGE © YouTube has been having so much trouble with their Fair Use policy lately that people had to speak up. Because so many channels have received penalties, YouTube users have been up in arms to get the website to actually address problems people have been having with this policy.

For those unaware, YouTube has a very poor system in place for dealing with channels that use music, video games or other media for their content. While many of these channels do not violate copyright laws, they are still having videos taken down and some people have even lost access to their channels for a short time.

This is due to the fact that instead of dealing with these issues like most normal companies would, YouTube has decided to take a more awful approach and just have bots take care of it.

And when I say bots, I don’t mean well-designed programs, I mean programs that were probably designed by a blind man who was dying from the flu.

As a result of how bad these bots work, many of these channels, some of whom are using YouTube as a way of making money, are being negatively affected despite that they haven’t done anything wrong.

What makes this even worse is that YouTube has had this system in place for so long and they just completely refuse to put a better system in place.

Something like having bots that are better programmed to look for actual violations of copyright law or just having a team of people to watch the videos in order to see why those videos are being flagged.

It’s honestly not surprising seeing how YouTube is owned by Google and Google’s idea of customer service is to turn off the lights in their offices and pretend they’re not even there.

Recently, many popular YouTube channels have been affected by this atrocious system which is why so many more people are speaking out against YouTube.

One of these channels was TeamFourStar who not only had some of their videos removed, but the entire channel itself was taken down for one full day.

TeamFourStar is the channel that created the “DragonBall Z Abridged” series.

They were taken down for copyright claims due to them using footage of the “DragonBall Z” anime, despite that they have been doing this series for years now and they have even received support from the original creators of the series.

Thankfully, TeamFourStar was able to get in contact with someone who worked at YouTube and they got their channel and videos back.

I’m honestly surprised they managed to not only get contact with someone from YouTube. I’ve always assumed that YouTube was run by demons who escaped from Hell and decided to start a website.

Even though many of these popular channels have gotten their videos back, the outcry on social media has still been very strong. People have been sharing the message “Where’s The Fair Use?” for many days now.

Because of this outcry, I think YouTube will do something. I think they’re going to continue being awful when it comes to their horrible system and dealing with people who have problems with their videos getting taken down.

The absolute worst part about this entire thing is that YouTube still punishes people for saying that their videos did not cause any violations.

If you get a video taken down for copyright violations or for having adult content and they still think you did something wrong, not only will they deny your proposal that you didn’t do cause any vi-

olations, but they will also put a strike on your channel, punishing you even more.

That’s basically the equivalent of a cable company telling a customer they didn’t pay their bill and when the customer shows them their receipt, the cable company ignores them and charges them more on their next bill. The only difference is that cable companies have better customer service than YouTube.

That’s not even my opinion. That’s the general consensus I’ve seen when people compare the two.

It would make sense that YouTube would work with these channels seeing how a huge majority of the most popular YouTube channels involve people playing video games and commenting while they play. And because it would make sense, YouTube decides not to do it.

I really enjoy watching videos on YouTube, so I want them to get these issues resolved and I know they can do it. I also know that a lot of this is the fault of Google, who is forcing YouTube to keep this horrible system in place.

Considering Google is using Comic Sans for the font of their logo, it’s pretty safe to say they’re full of bad decisions.

I wish I had a solution to these problems, but they only thing I can think of is to use other video sharing sites just as much as YouTube so they’ll actually have some kind of competition and will be forced by their Google overlords to change for the better.

But until then, I guess I’ll just continue watching videos and hope everything goes alright. Maybe YouTube will surprise us and will actually try to be better.

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BIRTHDAY BANGARANG Senior guard Victoria Stewart puts up 51 points on her birthday STORY BY MARIAH DELAVEGA — PHOTO BY KRISTINE MOORE The Reddie women’s basketball team won against Southwestern Oklahoma State University 87-76 on Thursday Feb. 25 at the Duke Wells Center.

In the first quarter SWOSU started off with the ball but missed a 3-pointer. HSU got the ball back and senior guard Victoria Stewart scored with a good layup 2-0.

Both teams were scoring points back to back. The Reddies took the lead when senior forward Dulincia Keener scored two 3-pointers along with Stewart scoring a 3-pointer as well making it 12-8.

Henderson didn’t let SWOSU score many points. HSU ended the first quarter 27-21.

In the second quarter the Reddies had to fight a little harder to keep the lead.

Keener started off with the ball and got her team two points with a layup. Both teams were scoring points and making shots in this second quarter battle. The Reddies stayed in the lead for a while after Keener and sophomore forward Makyndra Simmons helped the team by scoring field goals with seven minutes on the clock, making the score 35-29.

Neither team scored for some time as both teams ramped up their defense. HSU fouled allowing SWOSU to have a chance at coming back with five minutes on the clock. Senior guard Jennifer Williams started her team off with two free throws, putting them down just four points. HSU fouled Williams again and she dropped two more free throws and put two more points on the scoreboard making it 35-33.

The Reddies reclaimed the ball back but missed a 3-pointer.

SWOSU took advantage of the turnover with Williams dropping a layup and knotting up the score 35-35. The Bulldogs gained a small lead on the Reddies in the last half of the second quarter, 39-44.

Starting off the third quarter both teams showed strong defense, keeping each

other off the board. Stewart started off the scoring for her team with a 3-pointer closing the gap to 42-44. As the third quarter progressed the Bulldogs weren’t letting the Reddies retake the lead. The teams went up and down the court and HSU kept it close. Finally both teams tied up at 55-55 and junior guard Moe Bedford put HSU up by two. SWOSU wasn’t giving up and tied it up again 59-59. SWOSU ended up winning the third quarter by two points 59-61.

In the last quarter SWOSU stayed in the lead 59-63. Keener and Stewart both hit field goals to tie the score 63-63.The score was neck and neck with both teams fighting to win. It seemed as the game might be perpetually tied up. HSU ended up taking over with three minutes left on the clock. Stewart cracked off a hot streak and ended up putting nine points on the scoreboard alone. The Reddies took the lead 81-74 and ended up putting the game away winning it by 11 points, 87-76. Stewart ended the night with a career high, 51 points on the night.

“I came in and attacked the basket and shots were falling,” Stewart senior said.

“Plus it was my birthday so we had to get the win.”

Stewart mentioned that the game they played was a very important game that they needed to win in order to enter the GAC tournament in a good seating position.

“As a team we had good ball movement and defended well, we managed to get more rebounds than the opposing team,” Stewart senior said. “We showed up as a team and played as a team.”

The Reddies would also win their senior night on Saturday beating Northwestern Oklahoma University as the seniors stepped up and routed the Rangers, 76-65. The Reddies finished up the regular season winning five of their last six and going on a three-game winning streak. Henderson will play their next game in the Great American Conference Tournament on Thursday March 3 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Go online to the Oracle website at: www.hsuoracle.com to catch all the campus happenings and check out www.hsusports.com for more Reddie Athletics coverage.

FEELING 22 — Victoria Stewart goes up for a lay-up.