Fun Facts About Winter Carnival

1. Things MCAB did try this year to, “recreate a Winter Carnival that they might have had in the 50s or 60s,” according to Liz Gay ’11, MCAB Traditions Chair:
-Old-fashioned dance cards
-King and Queen
-Klondike Rush
-Retro style advertising posters

2. Ice sculpture competition used to be incredibly intense, and  revolved around the fraternities. Each of the 11 fraternities constructed their own sculpture, which were extremely complex.

3. One theme in the 1980s was “there’s no business like snow business.” This was a reference to cocaine, which had attracted a fairly significant following during the mid-1980s.

4. Part of MCAB’s carnival programming used to be to turn Proctor dining hall into a nightclub. “Upper Proctor” started at 10:30 or 11 PM and, “was always a zoo,” Lindholm said, due to the fact that, “believe it or not, some of the Middlebury College students would drink.”

5. The Winter Carnival used to issue a detailed program to students every year. The booklet included a thorough history of winter carnivals, photos and profiles of all the school’s ski teams, a program for the ice show performers, a synopsis of the play and photo story about the carnival play, student poetry and a basketball preview. Programs also included profiles of all the music groups, and profiles of MCAB committees, and it was all bound up in a glossy magazine-like format. The tradition lasted through the late 1960s.