For the past three years, the Residence Hall Association has hosted a Mardi Gras celebration for MSU students. This year was no different. On Friday, Feb. 24, students gathered in the CSC Atrtium and the Sunwatcher’s Plaza to celebrate Mardi Gras with friends and fellow classmates. 

 The evening was full of activities for students to participate in, such as a cakewalk, mask decorating and jewelry making.

SGA offered mocktails for the students. SGA leaders and cabinet members played around with combinations until they found the best ones.

Cheyenne Brown, social work sophomore helped serve the SGA’s mocktails. 

“I just like people to come to our booths, just to see how much they like these wonderful drinks,” Brown said.

The University Programming Board put on the cakewalk. UPB learned only a week in advance that it would be involved with the celebrations, so getting the cakes provided some difficulty.

“We bought 36 cakes. There was no discounts. Usually for these events, we usually ask them if we buy a dozen can you match a dozen, but we didn’t know we were doing this event until about a week before. It came out of our budget,” Lalawin Lay, marketing junior, said.

After working at the booth, Brown tried her hand at the cake walk.

“My favorite part about this whole event was winning a bundt cake in the cakewalk. I don’t think anyone could have topped winning a cake,” Brown said.

RHA planned the whole event. Although the Mardi Gras celebration has been a traditional event for the past three years, this year offered something new.

“This has been a traditional event for the RHA for the past three years, so we wanted to continue it, but we wanted to put our own spin in it with the carnival and involvement,” Adrian Robledo, computer science sophomore, said. 

While some other groups did not have as much time to prepare for the event, the RHA started planning early in the semester. Most of the planning involved reaching out to different groups to see if they would be interested in participating. 

This event allowed students to relax and have a great time with others. 

“It’s a great event. Seeing a bunch of students come through and be like this is really fun. It’s all free, so I feel like that is a big part, that plays into student involvement and everything,” Lay said.