As part of the MU College of Engineering's Engineer’s Week festivities, royalty candidates hosted Skits & BBQ on Wednesday evening, March 15, 2023, at Willie’s in Columbia. The five king and queen candidate pairings performed various skits, all related to the E-Week theme “Pat to the Future.” Audience members, largely dressed in green, ate shamrock cookies and BBQ, laughed and sang “St. Patrick was an Engineer” time and time again.

John Cooke, the head of the Skits & BBQ committee, announced the skits and worked to make the evening run smoothly. Cooke, a civil engineering major, said one of his goals for the event was for people to come together and enjoy the camaraderie.

“Every single year that I’ve been here at Mizzou — this is my fourth year now — we've had this event,” Cooke said. “It’s my favorite event that I look forward to the most just because everyone laughs; everyone is having a really good time. And there’s food involved, too. Everyone loves food.” 

To up the ante, five faculty judges ranked the skits. Cooke said the skits’ scores were based on the performers’ creativity and how they involved specific themes such as Erin go Bragh and St. Patrick. 

Roger Fales, MU College of Engineering Associate Dean of Student Services and Academic Programs, was one of the judges. He said the students came up with funny skits, and he enjoyed their singing. While he did like the Skits & BBQ, Fales said his favorite part of E-Week was the Hot Dog Banquet, which took place Monday.

Although audience reaction may not have been an official factor, royalty candidates did their best to elicit laughter and strong reactions from the crowd, creating their own sound effects and chasing one another around the room. Mechanical and aerospace engineering major Matt Cira sat close to the stage behind the judges to watch the skits. For Cira, his favorite part of E-Week is getting to meet all the “great engineers” he doesn’t normally meet. He said he most enjoyed the first skit, which made fun of business majors and featured queen candidate Jordan Hayes as MU Associate Professor Emeritus Dr. Steve Borgelt.

“We get to socialize outside of the classroom. We get to do all of these fun events, see tons of people, enjoying ourselves,” Cira said. “We’re in the classroom for 12 hours a day. It’s nice to finally let loose and have some fun."

Along with the crowd members, royalty candidates also found humor in the skits, cheering one another on. Tyler Schuster, one of the King candidates, played Fred Jones in a Scooby Doo/Mystery Inc. themed skit. He said he enjoys attending the different events, helping out and making sure everyone is enjoying themselves.

“[I hope] everyone has a good time, we make a few people laugh, and we’ve got good stories to tell when, hopefully, our kids come to MU,” Schuster said.

At the end of the evening, E-Week Chairs Lane Atchison and Kate Sherard announced the winners. There was a three-way tie for third place. Trenton Foster and Natalie Camilleri secured second place, and Alex Boren and Katie Bagley took first.

“I think it’s just being a part of something greater,” Foster said. “I’m of course a part of my org, [the National Society of Black Engineers], but I see my area of the university being my majors and my people who are involved in my org — and I of course meet a few other people, but this feels, like, bigger. It feels like it’s on a larger scale. And it’s just been a lot of fun to get more ingrained with the community.”

E-Week events, including today's Lab Exhibits in Lafferre Hall at 9 a.m., continue through Saturday. The celebrations will culminate in the St. Patrick’s Ball at 6:30 p.m. March 18 in the Reynolds Alumni Center Ballroom.

View the story here.