German Club members organized an Oktoberfest celebration in the Comanche room of Clark Student Center on Oct. 13. Yvonne Frank, assistant professor of German, explained the history of Oktoberfest dates back to the Kingdom of Bavaria.

“The original Oktoberfest is located in Munich and it was originally been celebrating and a wedding of King Ludwig,” Frank said. “He made it a public event and he invited everybody to come and celebrate and drink beer.”

Frank said that her favorite part of Oktoberfest in Germany was getting together with many people from around the world. She also said Oktoberfest encourages students of different academic disciplines to get together.

“I like the getting together of people without borders because it is people from different social classes from the past,” Frank said. “Nowadays, it is people from different areas of Germany and around the world. Here on our campus, it brings students from all different colleges and disciplines together as well.”

Frank explained the different ways Oktoberfest is celebrated in Bavaria, Germany. This includes drinking beer, wearing traditional Bavarian clothing and riding roller coasters.

“You have varies and really large beer tents,” Frank said. “People are sitting together on a long table where they eat and drink. Many visitors are wearing traditional Bavarian clothing. They display certain traditions of Bavaria, whether they are from Bavaria or not. It’s like a fair as well, so there are a lot of different things you can do.”

Frank also described the celebration of Oktoberfest at MSU. This included playing German games and eating different German cuisines.

“We are obviously just a small club and wanted to have a little bit of fun together,” Frank said. “We had a great variety of German food. We had German mac and cheese and street food with sausage and cheese. We had pretzel rolls and strudel for dessert. Also, a lot of students were also working on bringing their own dishes as well. We also played a lot of games.”

Frank said that Oktoberfest was a great opportunity for students and faculty to socialize and relieve themselves of mid-semester stress.

“A lot of students are struggling with midterm exams,” Frank said. “We just want a little getaway right here on campus that doesn’t cost anything and allows us to take a break from writing papers and studying. You will also get in touch with students from different cultures and different disciplines. In our German Club, students have very diverse backgrounds. We have people from the United States, the Caribbean and Asia.”

Emma Cabedis, ELAR 8-12 certification junior, said Oktoberfest was fun and the food was enjoyable.

“It was a lot of fun,” Cabedis said. “There was a lot of good food. A lot of it was homemade and even I made some. It was a lot of fun to have some authentic German food and talking to all my friends.”

Nahye Byun, piano performance senior, said her favorite part of Oktoberfest was getting to know people and eating German food. Her favorite German food was schnitzel.

“I haven’t tried German food in my life,” Byun said. “My favorite food was the schnitzel that Emma made. She said that it’s a family recipe. It was really good.”

Byun also explained the dish she brought to Oktoberfest.

“I made pretzel rolls this afternoon and it was made out of whole wheat,” Byun said. “It tasted good.”

Byun also said that she plans on visiting Germany in order to fulfill her academic graduate career.

“My degree for graduate school requires that I take a foreign language,” Byun said. “And I either want to take German or French. So I really hope to visit Germany one day.”

Chappell Whyms, president of the German Club, said Oktoberfest was a success. The most successful aspect of it was the different variety of food and the friendly atmosphere.

“We try our best to have good food,” Whyms said. “Also, the personalities of the members interacting with people and trying to be as friendly and welcoming as possible.”

However, Whyms said he wished that he was assigned a smaller room — the larger Comanche room made Oktoberfest seem smaller than it really was.

“I didn’t like the open space,” Whyms said. “A smaller room would have encouraged people to interact with each other. I would also prefer for us to have a few more games. We will prepare for more games next time.”

Whyms also explained the German Club is a group of people who have strong interests in German language and culture that meets every Monday at 4 p.m. in Prothro-Yeager.

“We like to be a welcoming group for anybody that is looking for a place to go and for people to meet and hang out with and relax,” Whyms said. “We also try to be as knowledgeable about the German culture as possible by finding out new things. [We also] keep up with current events in both Germany and the United States.”