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THURSDAY, APRIL 5

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6 CEDAR FALLS, IA INSIDE THIS ISSUE Ankara Night preview 2 Thank you, Stephen Hillenburg 3

VOLUME 114, ISSUE 42

VOLUME 115, ISSUE 27 Sports editor farewell 5 Wrestling in Vegas 6

Glee Club serenades at Variety Show ALANNA BYRNES Staff Writer

Last weekend, the UNI Varsity Men’s Glee Club hosted their 41st annual Christmas Variety Show. Filling the Great Hall at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center (GBPAC), the singers entertained a crowd of over 1,000 people. Associate music professor John Wiles has served as the director of the group for the past nine years. He introduced the singers in his “From the Director” piece in the show program, writing: “The Glee Club has a long history of offering great performances designed to entertain and inspire.” The Glee Club holds the record for the most soldout GBPAC performances, according to the program. Mr. Robert “Bob” Byrnes, who was the director of the Glee Club in 1974 and directed the group for 30 years, started the tradition of the Christmas Variety Show in 1978. According to the program, Byrnes’ goal for the group was that they would be “one of the best choruses on the planet.” Following a high-energy entrance from all corners of the Great Hall, the Glee

TONI FORTMANN/Northern Iowan

Club sang their traditional opener, “We Need a Little Christmas.” They also sang other Glee Club staples from the past 41 years, including “Silent Night” and a candle-lit rendition of “The First Noel.” Molly Mingus, junior business administration and economics major, is a returning fan of the Christmas Variety Show. “Each time I have gone [to the show] it puts a smile to my face,” said Mingus. “The Glee Club is so talented and their choice of a mix between comedy and music works perfect together. It is a show that is suitable for all ages and something I plan on going to again next year!” The show features other performers from across campus. This year, the Orchesis

Dance Company performed a modern piece set to a rendition of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” UNITUBA, one of the oldest tuba and euphonium ensembles in the world, performed “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Jingle Bells.” Also featured in the program was the “Legendary” Father Paul Peters, who has been accompanying the show on the Great Hall organ almost every year, and Paul Marlow, a Glee Club alumnus who has been the emcee for the show for the past 14 years. The SingPins, an auditioned acapella group within Glee Club, performed “Loch Lomond”’ by Jonathan Quick and “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” One of the show’s annu-

al highlights is a visit from Santa Claus, who talks to various children in the audience. Audience members at the Saturday matinee witnessed a Glee Club proposal during Santa’s rounds. “I never expected [the show] to have so much fun and be welcomed with so much energy,” said Carmen Fritz, a senior majoring in leisure, youth and human services. “I go every year with my family and am still impressed with the show.” Since the beginning of the Christmas Variety Show tradition, each year the Glee Club has performed a play written and directed by its members. This year, the Glee Club hosted a writing competition at Kingsley Elementary in Waterloo for the first

time. Ten-year-old Corbany P. Greenmore won with her story titled, “Cocoa Man Saves Christmas… Maybe.” The play tells the story of an evil Santa stealing the real Santa’s Christmas spirit. According to the program, the heroes of the play were based solely on Greenmore’s love for hot chocolate and candy canes. In the play, evil Santa and his gang of infamous “bad guys” including the Joker and Voldemort steal the real Santa’s magical underwear, planning to steal his socks next. Cocoa Man, Mr. Candy Cane and their team of “good guy” characters — including Batman and Harry Potter — come to the rescue and save Christmas. See GLEE CLUB, page 5

UNI finishes top 30 percent at CyberForce ANNA FLANDERS Staff Writer

Six UNI students competed in the U.S. Department of Energy’s CyberForce™ competition at Argonne National Laboratory in

Lemont, Ill. last weekend. It was UNI’s third time competing. They placed 18th out of 64 schools located in seven different places nationwide. “I think the average school size is around 22,000

COURTESY PHOTO/Argonne National Laboratory

with some really big schools like [University of Central Florida] who won it, and they’re the largest on-campus student body,” said assistant professor of computer science Andrew Berns, who served as a mentor for

competing UNI students and accompanied them to the Argonne Lab. “I was really happy with our top 30 percent finish, considering we’re a small school of 11,000 students.” The UNI team was comprised of Matthew Eltze, Joseph Gaiser, Steven Hodges, Sheriff Jorkeh, Chanlika Parker and Michael Riesberg-Timmer. To qualify for the competition, the team had to write an essay about creative cyber defense strategies that they would use in the competition. The students were supposed to act like the system administrator for a small business network. About three weeks before the competition, the UNI team was given virtual machines that they could access over the Internet. The team used this time to secure the machines

before the competition. They were not explicitly told the purpose of each machine or how they operated. “So, the first step was to actually tinker around with all the machines, see what they were trying to do, see where they were broken — what kind of fixes we needed to make just to get to operational status,” said Riesberg-Timmer, a senior majoring in computer science. “Then from there, we moved into the hardening phase. So that’s when we start doing the security stuff, locking everything down. Making sure things are in tiptop secure shape, so people can’t get in and steal stuff. And then the final step was coming up with creative ideas, trying to think outside of the box.” See CYBERFORCE, page 2


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