Juried Student
Track competes at
ARt Show at the
ASU in Tempe, AZ
performing and fine
March 15-16
Vol. 108 — No. 9
arts building Published by the students of Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, Arizona
March 14, 2019 — March 27, 2019
The Lumberjack goes old school in this special throwback issue NAU Roller Club brings vintage vibes Tehya Morison Editor’s note: The founder of the Roller Club, Ashley Lohmann, is a writer for The Lumberjack.
N
AU’s brand-new Roller Club is a blast from the past for many of its student participants. The club engages in cooperative roller skating as a means of staying fit, having fun and making vital connections with fellow classmates. Members of the Roller Club say people of all ages are welcome to join in the fun, regardless of their background or skill. The group operates on a bring-your-own-skates basis. However, anyone can test their skills on an obstacle course constructed by the team itself. Sophomore Ali Vorndran, the vice president of the Roller Club, said she feels that skating is making a comeback because of all the people she’s seen around campus who are just as excited about the activity as she is. Vorndran said skating is a complex sport that requires some skill. However, she said she feels it’s something everyone can have fun with. To her, skating isn’t a dying sport — it’s on the rise. “I’m really proud of the club
we’ve created on campus,” Vorndran said. “It’s part of the reason roller skating is coming back into style. Skating just makes me feel very confident and active.” Vorndran said the sport takes guts and finesse. To her, it’s just as stylish and hardcore as skateboarding. Vorndran said there’s beauty to skating because it’s an artistic expression. “The feeling of flying through campus, knowing that peoples heads are turning and still not caring is wildly empowering,” Vorndran said. NAU history professor Leilah Danielson studies why certain cultural trends, like skating, come and go within society. Danielson said that humans are curious and social creatures. She pointed out that nostalgia is a core component of human behavior and said that people often wish to connect with their history. “Cultural trends reappear because marketers are constantly reinventing their strategies in attempts to stay relevant and on the cutting edge,” Danielson said. “Given our overtly private and autonomous lifestyles, I think people really pine for genuine social interactions and collective experiences through participation in nostalgic pastimes.” Junior Traybourne North, a
Editor’s note
I
member of the Roller Club, echoed this idea and said he likes to skate with his friends in his free time because of the interactions it brings. North said he feels roller skating is becoming popular all across the city. In addition to social benefits, some students have joined the club to stay in shape. One of the club’s members, sophomore Bethany Argerake, said she joined in January because she was looking for new ways to stay physically active. Argerake said she’d always loved skating and that the activity had brought her many new friends throughout her life. Argerake said her dad introduced
the sport to her when she was 5 years old and, since then, she’s always had a passion for skating. She said she’s been to skating rinks across the country and loves how many different people she’s met along the way. Despite her passion for the sport, she said all her skating is purely recreational. “I love skating, but I don’t do competitions or anything like that,” Argerake said. “I just like doing this on my free time. I think it’s cool when I can pull off a trick or two.” According to the National Museum of Roller Skating’s (NMRS) website, skating took hold in the Continued on Page 24
n this special throwback issue we are going back to our roots. There is a long history for the paper as it has been in publication since 1914. The masthead you see on the top of the page is the very first one used after our original newspaper, The Pine, changed its name to The Lumberjack in 1946 after a vote by the entire student body. As much as I would like, we are not keeping this new front page layout and will be back to our regular design after spring break. We scoured the archives to find photos and stories on everything from the original mascot of NAU (a dog named “Mike”) and the evolution of Louie to the time of 1965 when Arizona State College changed its name to Northern Arizona University — a task put forward by the president of ASC at the time, J. Lawrence Walkup whom the Dome is named after. We relied heavily on the Cline Library Special Collections and Archives and I would like to sincerely thank them for keeping this vast wealth of knowledge alive. The Lumberjack, NAU and Flagstaff all have a rich history that deserves to be explored. I am very proud of the hard work every writer, editor, photographer, illustrator and designer put in to creating it. Matthew Strissel, Editor-in-Chief