IN MEMORIAM: MY YEARS AT RICKS COLLEGE

On Sunday afternoon after dropping my mom off at the airport, we met up with all of the Gummows in Rexburg at Craig's mom's house. Heidi and I had been chatting about walking around the BYU-I campus for years now, so after dinner we headed to the school and walked around. It was weird because honestly a lot of it is different since I was a student. It freaked me out how much I DIDN'T remember the campus because they have updated and changed so much. Still, it also brought back a ton of memories. (How could it not?)

One of my top memories of being at Ricks was finding a picture of myself in the Ricks College school catalog. During the fall of '97 my roommates and I went out to take fall festive pics and someone was taking pics for the catalog. He asked this random guy to pose with us in pictures (I bet that random guy doesn't even remember this ever happening to him.) Anyway, that spring I had kind of forgotten about it and then when I got my 1998-1999 catalog I was flipping through it and suddenly I FLIPPED out! There I was! In print! In the Ricks College catalog! Not my face anyway, but STILL...ME in the freaking catalog. Being the attention obsessed girl I was at the time I was totally giddy. I laughed and smiled all the way home to my apartment excited to show my roommates. It was certainly a highlight of my two years of academia.

 

At the end of my first year I had a play date with my summer term roommies and we took a few campus catalogue shots too.

 

 So while we were there with the kids I had them pose for catalog shots. It was awesome. Honestly, just when I thought I couldn't love Cy and Catcher anymore...they came up with this pose of them on the steps chatting like good old school chums. Stella rocked it out as well as I am sure will not surprise you. The other kiddies are Avry and Jocelyn, Gummow cousins.

 

 

 

 

We walked all the way to the top of campus so there were plenty of chances for more hilarious and fun pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But what was my favorite Ricks College memory, you ask? Of course you are just crazy dying to know, right? It was my nights as a member of a locally famous and highly exclusive dance group called "Too Hot for Ricks College." The members were me and Heidi. We would go to the Ricks dances and take up like an eighth of the dance floor and show our stuff. Leaps, turns, and a lot of reaching with feeling. How do I know we were famous? Well, one day while Heidi was at work at a bagel place all the way over in Idaho Falls, some guy told her she looked familiar. Then he said: "I know who you are! You are one of those girls who dances at the Ricks dances." It was a proud moment for us both, to know that our love of dance and attention had spread out as far as Idaho Falls. 

Today, one of the few things that is the same now on campus is the room where we used to dance. So we recreated some of our best moves. I did have a small toe spasm, but other than that we still got it!

 

 

 

 

 

Despite being utterly and totally exhausted, I couldn't stop thinking of my college days that night as I tried to fall asleep. It is amazing how two years of my life don't change me much these days, but those years at Ricks made a huge impact on the kind of gal I am now. I arrived as a prissy, goody-two-shoes, non-rated-R-movie-watching girl who thought every boy was going to try and marry me. I left as a more relaxed, rated-R-movie-owning girl who was a sassy thing who didn't take life nearly as seriously. I also left Ricks with Heidi as my best friend, and I can't stand to even think about what a life without her would be like. This summer marks 15 years since I started at Ricks for my amazing summer term, and I still have the same hair style. I guess there are some things that two years away at college can never change.