nicole11@unm.edu
“Star Wars” enthusiasts from across campus — a caterer in the SUB, a student who works in Residence Life and Student Housing and a member of the Dean of Students Office — join forces to host UNM’s largest “Star Wars” event.
“May the Fourth Be With You” refers to both the date of the event and one of the most famous lines from the “Star Wars” movies, “May the force be with you.”
The event features a make-your-own “Star Wars” cookie table, a photo booth and “Star Wars” video games, as well as at least 20 fully costumed “Star Wars” characters.
“May 4 is kind of a national holiday for ‘Star Wars’ fans,” said Ryan Lindquist, associate director of the Student Activities Center.
Lindquist said members of the center put on UNM’s first “May the Fourth Be With You” event last year and it was a huge success.
“Everyone in the office, we’re pretty big ‘Star Wars’ fans and we thought about doing a little celebration for ourselves, but came together and realized there are a lot of students who are ‘Star wars’ fans, too, and we decided to give it a shot and see how it went,” he said.
He said the office owns five or six “Star Wars” costumes including Jabba the Hutt, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. The event features a Mos Eisley Cantina with drinks such as SoBe-Wan Kenobi (raspberry SoBe tea), Princess Leia Lime (yellow Gatorade) and Java the Hutt (Starbucks Frappuccino).
Lindquist said a couple hundred people attended last year and participants took 200 “Star Wars”-themed photos.
“There were people in full costume, there were people with Yoda backpacks or people with ‘Star Wars’ t-shirts, all different types who just wandered in on the event and thought it was cool and just made a cookie or played games or had their pictures taken,” Lindquist said.
Student Activities Center work-study student Krista Navarrette said people bring their own paraphernalia to the event.
“One of the students just randomly came in and he had lightsabers, so students took pictures with them,” she said. “He kind of showed people the technique of lightsabering.”
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Navarrette dressed up as Princess Leia last year and said she isn’t sure what she will dress up as this year.
“It was cool because I was like a celeb for a day,” she said. “I thought about being an Ewok, but that’s probably not going to happen.”
Lindquist said organizers held their first meeting more than a month ago and he said it wasn’t difficult to put together.
“It takes some time to prepare for, but it’s a passion that a lot of people in our office have, so it’s pretty easy to motivate everyone in the office to contribute,” he said.
“May the Fourth Be With You”
Friday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
SUB Atrium
