Students gathered to meet and take photos with President Bill Perry Thursday afternoon in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Bridge Lounge as a part of “Photos with the Prez,” which is a part of the Prowlin with the Prez series.

The Student Government Association runs the series and they were the ones who took the photos.  People got to take photos with Perry in front of a Old Main backdrop and they got to choose to take the photos with props.  The props available were enlarged photo cutouts of Billy the Panther, Jimmy Garapolo and emojis.

This event not only let students get the opportunity to be able to talk with Perry, along with letting Perry get to know the students.

He said he has enjoyed each Prowlin with the Prez event.  “The series has been really fun because each has a different theme and that kind of brings different students out,” Perry said.  “And them some of them like this being here in the bridge lounge with a lot of students coming through and everything I got to met some students I have not met before.”

He said he talked to the students about their hometowns, majors, about their semesters and what interesting things they are doing in the semester.  Perry said he found out some of the students were freshmen and others were transfers.

“One of the students told me one of his parents have gone to school here and so that made it kind of special to him to be here,” he said.

The sun coming out today helped students he said because it seemed to lift everyone’s spirits.  Perry said he and the students had fun taking the photos with the props.  He even said he had a couple of favorite props.

“I like Billy the Panther, the ‘I Heart EIU’ sign and I like the Jimmy Garoppolo one, but I only used it once,” he said.  “I held it in front of my face because I wanted to see what Jimmy’s face looked on my body.”

Out of all the Prowlin events this year, Perry said his favorite ones were Party with the Prez, which was out at the Egg in Greek Court and a Christmas party with the international students.

“We had many international students and we talked about their traditions, some of them were around harvest and some were on religious holidays, but we found this common thing around food in the holidays,” Perry said.

The last event is April 29th in the South Quad and will be called “Picnic with the Prez.”

Stephanie White can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].