When we’re not busy shaping the future of KU Law by hand-selecting the next class of students (just kidding — the day we get any say over admissions decisions is the day I send Snooki and Pauly D their acceptance letters and scholarship offers, because how awesome would that be?), the KU Law Student Ambassadors really know how to cut loose. I’d like to take you through a journey of a couple of my favorite Student Ambassador events from this semester.
Laser Tag
It was no surprise when we started brainstorming social event ideas that our group of law students kept coming back to two games that were competitive, giving the opportunity both to show off individual skills and to humiliate the less-talented members (me): paintball and laser tag. For the sake of my own fragility, I was happy that we eventually landed on laser tag.
That is, until we arrived at Advanced Laser Tag in Olathe and I realized that I was about to be embarrassed by the slew of 7- to 9-year-olds who were all hopped up on birthday cake and soda. Thankfully, we got to play in teams, so my terrible performance was offset by that of my crazy-intense classmates. The pride I took in helping beat a bunch of kids at their favorite game on their birthdays? Powerful, but also a new low point.
Laser Tag Star Profile: Ninja NateNate Behncke (blue shirt) deserves a serious shoutout for teaching the KU Law Student Ambassadors how to dominate at laser tag. A seasoned laser tag competitor, he taught us about strategy, but more importantly, he taught us about courage. It takes some serious chutzpah to dive, roll and snipe like he did, but by the end of it he had every one of us prepped to stunt in the next Bond movie.
Afterward, we relocated to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the KU game and, in what some might consider an effort to regain our man points, I challenged my fellow ambassadors to split the Blazin’ Wings Challenge with me. We have captured the “before” moment on film (note the fear in Mandy’s eyes in the photo below), but were unable to get an “after” for obvious reasons. So much for vindicating our shame.
Ambassador Barbecue
Our end-of-year barbecue gave us a great opportunity to send off Jacqlene Nance, the director of admissions and scholarships responsible for selecting all of us as ambassadors and running our program. Jacq is moving to the East Coast and took this final opportunity to say a personal goodbye to each of us. To me, she said something along the lines of “When I read this music major’s personal statement, I thought, ‘Does this girl have any idea what she’s getting into?’ and ‘Will she even make it through law school?’” To be fair, I had no idea. But I have made it so far, and in large part thanks to the great group of students Jacq picked as ambassadors. She’ll be missed here, but I know that current and future ambassadors will continue to spread her legacy through KU Law and children’s play zones everywhere.
Alyssa Boone, 2L and Student Ambassador
