Rainy weather could not put a damper on the Spring Fling festival, hosted by the University Board, which relocated from the Library Quad to the Martin Luther King Jr., University Union.

The theme of Spring Fling 2009 was “Wild Safari.”

The Bridge Lounge became dense as a jungle on account of all the activities reassigned.

A giant inflatable chair shared the lounge with tables giving out freebies like “Wild Safari” T-shirts, personalized photo key chains and “Spin Art Frisbees” that spun on a wheel while students dropped paint on them.

The star of the bridge lounge was the exotic animal petting zoo provided by Animal Rentals Inc. in Chicago. Mr. Adam Monk, a diapered three-year-old Cebus Monkey, was passed from shoulder to shoulder.

Two Burmese Pythons were draped around consenting students for photo opportunities.

The joke, “Careful! He already bit one person today,” was repeated by student handlers to spook those who tried to squeeze by the snake in the crowded lounge.

The closest the room came to clearing was when animal handler Mark Szafran brought Purse, the baby American Alligator, out of her cage.

Szafran told students the four-foot long Purse would one day grow to be more than eight feet long from nose to tail. When asked by a student if Purse would bite off fingers that got too close, Szafran nodded gravely.

The University Board provided free food from Joey’s Place, who set up grills outside under the bridge of the Union. Joey’s Place brought 500 hamburgers, hotdogs, bags of chips and cases of Coke and Diet Pepsi. They started serving at noon, and by 1:30 p.m. the line for food went across the street. By 2:30 p.m., no food was left.

Bingo was played in the vending lounge for prizes such as Eastern apparel, a grill set and a 31.5-inch HDTV.

Ashley Jones, a sophomore biological sciences major, and Dave Hodgeman, a junior sociology major, both went head to head in a game of Rock Paper Scissors to determine the winner of a bingo round with a pool set for a prize.

“I called (bingo) first, but apparently, he has a broken leg so he didn’t get to call it in time, so then we went to this rock paper scissors thing and he won,” Jones said.

Hodgeman described his winning strategy.

“I just threw rock every time,” he said.

Special events coordinator Otis Seawood, a senior family and consumer science major, met with Ceci Brinker, director of Student Life, at 8:30 a.m. to decide where to relocate the event to. The rock climbing wall and the inflatable rat race were canceled because of the weather.

“The ground was just too wet, and the sidewalks and the concrete space wasn’t big enough to improvise and bring those indoors,” Brinker said

Since the obstacle course was larger than the Grand Ballroom, it had nowhere else it could be set up.

Doug T. Graham can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].