Food, music and laughter filled the Hughes-Trigg Commons at 12 p.m. yesterday as The Mustang Ropers held their Lasso-a-Mustang Date Auction. People quickly began to crowd the area to see if they could win a date with an SMU Mustang.
The event featured nine athletes from the football team, men’s soccer team, swim team and women’s basketball team.
The Ropers have been planning and preparing for their silent date auction since last semester. The Ropers held the auction to raise money for future events and activities.
Each candidate was asked three questions to help the audience learn more about them. The questions were “kind of hard to answer on the spot,” said Beau Sydes, one of the candidates from the swimming and diving team.
Some of the candidates gave sharp answers to the difficult questions.
Jon Lindley, a candidate from the football team, was asked, “ If you were a dessert, what dessert would you be and why?”
He replied, “I would be a German chocolate cake because it’s thick and fluffy.”
Nick Packee, a candidate from the football team, also had a clever answer to one of his questions. He was asked, “If your ideal girl were a drink what would she be and why?” He responded, “If my ideal girl was an alcoholic drink, she would be a suicide because she kills me.”
The turn out wasn’t as good as anticipated, but the Ropers raised over $500. The highest bid for the auction was $250.
“We had hoped for more people, but we did do better than we expected,” said Fredricka Johnson, one of the Mustang Ropers.
Ro Humphrey, one of the candidates, said, “As long as [the candidates] get more than the minimum $10, [it’s] fine.”
Since the bids were made anonymously, the candidates were not able to find out how much money they raised.
The Ropers arranged to announce the winners during a time-out at tomorrow’s men’s home basketball game against San Jose State.
According to roper executive board member, Emily Graham, they thought this would be a great way to also increase attendance at the basketball game.
The Ropers received a lot of support from area businesses. They had food donated by Plucker’s, and an assortment of cookies, donated by Doughmonkey.
Executive board member Susan Akinyemi said, “The local businesses were very willing to help once they found out who we were and what we were doing.”
The Ropers also received gift donations from Lane Florist, Jamba Juice, Roly Poly, Starbuck’s, McCartny’s, Quizno’s and Flash photography. All of these prizes will be given out at the game tomorrow.
Akinyemi said, “Everything went well, and I’m happy we had fun and raised a lot of money.”