Relay for life, silent for a cause

By: Gretchen Settle

Relay for life an organization for cancer awareness, to raise money for cancer, and a celebration for cancer survivors packed the track with activities, music and people. Girls hula-hooped the track, men broke out the high heels for charity, and balloon animals of several shapes and colors walked among the walkers. Some people didn’t walk, they danced. And amongst all the noise and fun, they remained silent for another cause.

Catching up with the dancing trio of students, it was discovered that an interview might be a little more difficult then it normally would. All three FSU students were participating in Day of Silence, and they weren’t going to break that silence for anybody. Day of Silence is done once a year to raise awareness about the problem of bullying. The people participating stay silent for an entire 24 hours to echo those whose voices are taken due to bullying. The students, Tiegen Hauser, James Richards and Diana Deliyannis were serious about keeping to their oath and wouldn’t speak no matter what.

While dancing around the track with them, we came up with all other means of communication on which to well, communicate by, until the clock hit twelve. Among the most entertaining was interpretive dance, pantomiming, and frantic snapping to one another. Michael “Squiggles” Lewonick a student at FSU and a friend of the trio who was supporting but not participating in the Day of Silence explained how he felt about the event, “I feel as if it’s a good thing. I feel that it (Doing it at relay) will get more people to notice Day of Silence, and breaking the silence will get people to pay attention to it.” Michael spoke about how it felt to have his usually rambunctious friend’s silent for the whole day. “You’d think they’d be less annoying,” He joked. “But they found more interesting ways to annoy me”.

Finally, at twelve, the silence was broken with loud yells. Duct tape James had used to help him keep his oath was swiped off as he let out a loud holler. Now there could be an interview! The enthusiastic friends gladly answered questions about the day. “This year there were people participating I didn’t even know, we saw people being quiet today and I was like Oh cool!” She went on to explain how their group, BTGLASS (BI-sexual, Transgendered, Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Supporters) had promoted the Day of Silence program to raise awareness. They felt that breaking the silence at Relay for Life was the best place because they could support another cause in the process. Tiegen also shared information about BTGLASS’s next big event, the It gets better program. “It’s a program to reach out to the community and the school to let them know that, it gets better. Because it’s a tough time for people, growing up, People don’t always think it gets better but it does.”