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March
2012
Volume 24
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Boise, Idaho
Top Stories I’m on a board
Lifestyles Editor
Red Bull Butter Cup showcases local riders this past weekend.
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Check out our favorite apps for productivity and procrastination.
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Heathcock
Q & A with awardwinning author, Boise State professor.
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scene has the advantage of being more of a community. “All the local bands are going crazy about it,” Jones added. And the bands are pushing more and more people to come out to the festival to see them play. Other concert organizers have been surprised by how organized the Treefort project has become and are impressed these guys just “winged it.” “What started off as these meetings between one or two people kind of drinking and brainstorming, now we have these meetings and ... it’s pretty organized,” Lorona said. They meet late at night at peoples’ houses or coffee shops because, for now, Treefort is a project they are all working on part-time. They don’t have an office or a company cell phone plan. Their primary resource for planning the event is sticky notes. They aren’t doing any radio or television ads. And they certainly aren’t in it for the money. “This is definitely an event that is curated by people who love music,” Dalley said. They are motivated less by profit and more by the potential power they have to get more of their favorite bands to play in Boise. “The goal was to support the local music scene by helping the radio station (Radio Boise) and making cool bands want to come here,” Lorona said. “The motivation is a little bit more about the scene, and people embrace that message.” Despite the lack of advertising, Treefort is getting national bands, national attention and national press. “Local music has turned a lot of national eyes toward Boise,” Dalley said. People are beginning to see Boise as “an incubator for new, exciting art and local bands are at the forefront of making that happen.” Jacy Skeen, a senior majoring in communication with a public relations certificate, heard about the planning of Treefort through her job at The Record Exchange and her involvement in the Boise music scene. As soon as she knew the festival was happening she knew she wanted to be a part
of the innovative music event. “I feel that (Boise) has something to offer and as a community, we’ve felt like that for a long time and now, with Treefort, some national people are actually paying attention to us and I think that’s really important for the local bands and for Boise in general,” Skeen, who is now a public relations intern for Treefort, said. “Bands will come through and spend the night in Boise and not even play a show and now maybe that will change.” Treefort is inexpensive as far as music festivals go—only $79 for all four days. There are also options to purchase single-day passes or Main Stage tickets for each evening.
“If you compare our ticket prices to other music festivals, it’s silly,” Lorona said. “We really just want people to get excited about shows.” Treefortmusicfest.com has a complete schedule and lineup as well as artist bios and the ability to stream music from many artists on the bill. Concert goers can use the website to plan their days at Treefort. “We put a lot of work into setting the lineup … so if you did just park it (in one location) you’d have a great time,” Lorona said. “But we intentionally made it so it’s a tough decision whether to stay or to go.” The festival will get underway Thursday, March 22 at 6
p.m. Thursday will be a warmup day with acts like Finn Riggins, Grand Falconer and Grandma Kelsey. Headliners will perform on the Main Stage Friday, Saturday and Sunday. When members of Built to Spill take the stage Saturday, it will mark their first performance in their hometown of Boise in more than two years. Taking the Main Stage Sunday evening will be Of Montreal, a group known for crazy antics at their shows, from performing on horseback to wearing nothing but whip cream. “Don’t bring your grandparents,” Jones said.
See Treefort I page 04
Broncos make a difference Journalist
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Coachella rocks the California desert every year. At The Gorge in Washington, Sasquatch! is a big deal. Music lovers flock to Tennessee for a “really good time” at Bonnaroo. And from March 22 to 25, Boise will launch its own monumental musical tradition with the inaugural Treefort Music Fest. Treefort is a new festival for emerging artists in Boise that will feature more than 120 bands at eight venues over a four-day period within a four-block radius. The festival is the brainchild of several local music lovers, including 2010 Boise State graduate Matt Dalley; senior business and communication double major Matt Jones; and MBA student Drew Lorona. “This baby has, like, seven parents,” said Dalley, Treefort’s publicist and member of the artist committee. Last fall, Dalley, Jones and Festival Director Eric Gilbert started getting drinks together on a regular basis and throwing around ideas for a music festival in Boise. Meanwhile, Lorona, assistant director of the festival, and Producer Lori Shandro were exploring the possibility of opening a new music venue in Boise. At the advice of local venue owners, Lorona and Shandro decided they would start promoting shows before trying their hand at a venue. The two groups hooked up and set out to produce a single show in March as way to test out their ideas. It began to snowball into the four-day festival as more and more people wanted to get involved. “We kind of looked at it and said, ‘Well, it would be stupid to tell all these people no so let’s just keep growing the festival,’ ” Lorona said. “So we just kept growing it and growing it and eventually we had to hit the brakes.” Jones explained that while Boise may not have as many well-known acts as somewhere like Portland, Boise’s music
Ellie Parton
Tomorrow
First issue free
New festival fosters local talent Lindsey Hileman
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Fraternities and sororities are often viewed as exclusive groups of college students who party relentlessly and instigate outrageous initiations on wannabe members. This, however, is often not the case. There are many more important aspects of fraternities and sororities than what is perceived—including building lifetime bonds and
supporting philanthropic causes. Members of the sororities at Boise State aim to leave their mark on the community and around the world, and every fraternity and sorority supports a specific philanthropic cause. “Each sorority and fraternity nationally has a philanthropic cause that they raise money for throughout the year,” said Angela Baugher photo courtesy Alpha xi delta
See Broncos I page 06
Stephanie Pyles of AXD meets with young Jamaican students during her trip.
The President’s Writing Awards welcome all students Amy Howarth
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The Arbiter
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Students of all majors and disciplines: polish your essays and research papers. The President’s Writing Awards season is upon us. The awards are open to all Boise State students, no matter their field of study. “All majors are welcome. This is not a humanities contest. This is absolutely intended to beg writers from every discipline to enter,” Director Carrie
Seymour said. Categories include creative nonfiction, researchbased papers, critical analysis, writing in science, engineering and math, first-year writing and multilingual first-year writing. Science, math and engineering is a new category aimed at papers related to those specific fields. Critical analysis is a category for papers that focus on critique and evaluation. The first-year writing category is open to any stu-
dent who is or was enrolled in English 90, 101, 102 or 112 during summer or fall of 2011 or spring of 2012. Two winners will be chosen from each category. First place writers receive $150, second place $75. In addition to the prize money, winners attend a formal ceremony where they get to meet and receive a photograph with Boise State President Bob Kustra. “It’s a really lovely ceremony that celebrates these
writers,” Seymour said. Past winners have included students from the nursing, art history and engineering departments. “English majors do not overwhelmingly win these prizes—they’re won by people in completely different fields,” Seymour said. The annual tradition began more than 27 years ago by the First-Year Writing Program. It is now sponsored and funded by Kustra’s office.
“It’s a great literary tradition at Boise State,” Seymour said. The submission deadline is March 20. Manuscripts are accepted either electronically or in person. Detailed manuscript and submission requirements are listed on Kustra’s website at president.boisestate.edu. For more information about the President’s Writing Awards, contact Carrie Seymour at cseymour@ boisestate.edu or visit the president’s website. arbiteronline.com