Leah Franklin performs a pole routine during the Muse Pole Fitness 11th Anniversary Student Showcase on Friday, Feb. 10, 2023, at The Blue Note in Columbia. Acts ranged from striking and sultry to poignant and political, but each drew applause, supportive shout-outs and cheers from the crowd.

Along with other crowd members, Eliana Eubanks, left, and Mya Burken, right, sing “St. Patrick was an engineer” on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, at Willie's in Columbia. Roger Fales, one of the judges, said the song is a reference to the legend that the first Engineer’s Week was started when a student wrote on a chalkboard, “No classes today. St. Patrick was an engineer,” promoting students to cut classes.

Missouri's Noah Surtin celebrates after defeating Iowa State's Ethan Perryman on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023 at the Hearnes Center in Columbia. Surtin won by pin with six seconds remaining in the first period.

David Amirdjanian, a student at the University of Missouri—Columbia, takes photos and listens to music while smoking a cigarette during a LAIKA concert on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022, on East Campus in Columbia. The band played at a house party during Halloween weekend.

Sarai Buckins, 11, performs with The Dancing Divas during the March March parade on Friday, March 3, 2023, on Ninth Street in Columbia. “I really enjoyed doing that. It was really fun to get to really dance,” Buckins said. “I hope that [the crowd] enjoyed it.”

Becky Dorfmeyer performs a lyra routine as part of the Muse Pole Fitness 11th Anniversary Student Showcase on Friday, Feb. 10, 2023, at The Blue Note in Columbia. “First of all, it doesn’t have to be sexy, but there’s also nothing wrong with being sexy,” Muse owner Jordan Mazur said. “It’s completely OK to do something that is empowering for yourself because really, at the end of the day, it is all just for you and not for what other people think of you.”

Dressed as a flamingo, Luka, 6, chases Tristan, 4, who is dressed as a pirate, before the start of the March March on Friday, March 3, 2023, at the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia. Luka said her favorite thing about being a flamingo is that it’s pink, and she planned to “eat people and pirates.”

River Pauley, 2, walks Chebby, a pot-bellied and mini pig hybrid, during a protest Thursday, March 2, 2023, by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine at MU’s Memorial Union. “We just want to advocate for the pigs,” said Krista Pauley, River’s mother. “We heard about the research Mizzou is doing, and we wanted to try to help end the invasive procedures that are done to the pigs.”

During a hat shaping pop-up event, Bailey Popejoy adjusts Lynne Harris’ hat on Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, at Fringe Western Wear in Columbia. “I love the West. We have a place in Colorado, and I just like the way I feel in a hat. I love that I don’t have to fix my hair,” Harris said. “I love clothing with southwest stuff, and so it just goes with my vibe.”

Jeff Stack, an anti-death penalty advocate who helps coordinate the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation and largely organized the evening’s vigil, stands for a period of silence on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, at the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia. “Raheem Taylor is a human being who has a right to life. He should be spared. We wish that the governor would intervene, but we think it’s really important to be a witness to what our state is planning in our name with our tax money,” Stack said. “It’s really important to remember them and just to realize that that great and terrible tragedy is not erased by erasing yet another human being. Enough murder, enough killings occur.”