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Walk the Chalk

MARQUETTE — The sidewalks at Northern Michigan University’s Academic Mall resembled part of the movie “Mary Poppins” Monday afternoon.

One scene in that famous 1964 film depicted Bert creating sidewalk art into which he, the title character and the children, Jane and Michael Banks, jumped, becoming immersed in magical animation.

That didn’t happen Monday, but the chalk art created by students during the annual sidewalk competition still added a touch of color to campus.

NMU junior Josh Ryan coordinated the event, which he said takes place every year during Homecoming Week, kicked off Sunday with the Dead River Games near Clark Lambros’ Park.

“It’s just one thing we have on the menu for Homecoming Week,” Ryan said.

oel VanHeulen, a freshman at Northern Michigan University, works on a piece of sidewalk chalk art on behalf of Cedar Hall Monday at the Academic Mall recently. The sidewalk art event was part of this week’s Homecoming festivities.(Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

Other events planned for this week were to include a “Here’s the Scoop” ice cream social Tuesday, a scavenger hunt across the city of Marquette today and the unveiling of the new wildcat statue outside Jamrich Hall Friday.

Students accumulate 10 points for their house or student organization through participating in the sidewalk event, he said.

At the end of the week, the group with the most points win.

“A lot of the housing and residence halls will come together and just act as one group,” Ryan said, with several people coming out to draw on a sidewalk block.

The purpose of the sidewalk competition, which isn’t judged, is to get people “pumped up” for Homecoming Week, Ryan said.

“They have more of a sense of camaraderie when it comes time for the parade or when everybody comes together for the whole football game,” Ryan said.

Through Monday’s sidewalk event, that camaraderie could have come about through a dragon, or even Elliott riding E.T. through the sky framed by the moon in the movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

Those were part of just a few of the imaginative squares students created.

“I want to be a part of NMU, so I started doing ‘hall gov’ and ‘house gov,'” said Joel VanHeulen, a freshman. “Homecoming is a nice way to contribute to NMU and have fun at the same time.”

The theme of his residence hall, Cedar Hall, is “Time is a Construct,” he said, so its square has things like a melting clock and different numbers.

This is an example of sidewalk chalk art created by Northern Michigan University students at the Academic Mall Monday. The event was part of this week’s Homecoming festivities. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

These definitely aren’t items students on their way to Jamrich would typically see.

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.

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