Monster Dash was held on Oct. 27 at Macon State. This event was open to all Macon State, Mercer and Wesleyan faculty, staff and students.
The event was advertised as a one mile fun run, a 5k run, free giveaways, prizes and costume contests.
When asked about what Monster Dash entailed, outside of advertisements, Assistant Director of Campus Life Cindy Drury said, “Monster Dash is a new partnership between the three local colleges in Macon: Macon State, Mercer University and Wesleyan College. The plan, right now, is that every year the event will transfer campuses.”
Last year, Macon State held the event and saw it as a success. This year they came to Mercer to ask if Mercer would like to partner up with Macon State, along with Wesleyan.
“The goal is to partner up with the other two schools for at least one event a semester, and [to] create a community amongst the students attending the various colleges around Macon,” adds Drury.
Seeing that the event rotates around Macon, Mercer is hoping to garner more support from its students in the upcoming years. In the future, all schools hope to have a larger attendance of students from all three of the colleges.
Joanna Malcom, a senior communication studies major, said she “had a blast running the Monster Dash.”
This was her second time running in costume and she would be “more than willing to do it again.” Malcom added “It’s definitely an entertaining experience to see people running around dressed up. I am very glad that Mercer was able to work with Macon State and Wesleyan to collaborate for the event. I think it was a great opportunity to build the college community here in Macon,” said Malcom.
“Running through the center of Macon State’s campus was pretty cool, but part of the run was dark. If I weren’t graduating, I would love to run the event again, but I would really enjoy seeing a lot more participation from Mercer students. I think it’s great to see all the Macon colleges collaborating on an event.”
“We all live in this community and should support one another, and participating in a fun event is a really easy way to get that sort of collaboration started,” said senior Kimberly Campbell.
Commenting on the collaboration between the various colleges around Macon, senior Jenny Fingles said, “I think working together is a great way to get all of the colleges together and keeping the community involved. There were a lot of families and cute kids dressed up for the event.”
One critique Junior Mary Catherine Rosher had, which Fingles also commented on, was that “it was really dark. Maybe if the event were earlier or on a Saturday morning, I think that would be better.”
Despite the poor lighting, Rosher said that she “really enjoyed the Monster Dash and will definitely run it again next year. As far as the collaboration effort goes, it was nice seeing so many college kids involved. There were very few people that did not go to either Mercer, Wesleyan, or Macon State which was kind of neat.”
Participants enjoyed running in the event dressed in costumes. Whether it was the one mile fun run or the 5K race, runners from Mercer, Wesleyan and Macon State enjoyed the Monster Dash event.
Macon students participate in Monster Dash 5K
