This year, the Utah State University Bookstore’s annual Valentines Day competition was slightly altered from tradition. Each year, the bookstore employees host a competition called The Kiss Off, where couples would place a block of wood between their lips and the couple who held the block in place the longest won a prize.
“People would cry because you go crazy standing for so long like that,” said Carrisa Dominy, Utah State Bookstore’s marketing manager. “We decided that we wanted to keep the Kiss Off tradition but also mix it up. Make it a little more enjoyable and quicker so that it didn’t last all day long.”
Instead of only doing the Kiss Off, the bookstore marketing team decided to create a new, animal themed event called The Wild About You Competition that took place Wednesday, Feb. 11. This contest included an altered version of the Kiss Off and a series of challenges with objects commonly found around the house, otherwise known as “Minute to Win it” games.
“We thought it’d be fun because we know that people sometimes don’t like us due to text books, buy backs and different things like that,” Dominy said. “We don’t like that image. A lot of people don’t realize that the bookstore doesn’t run for profit. All of the money that we make goes back to the students through scholarships and different things.”
The competition began with the Kiss Off and 24 couples competing. Instead of standing with the block between the contestant’s lips, the couples were asked to do different animal movements such as: flamingo, gorilla, beached whale, kangaroo and more. The last 12 couples standing moved on to the next task.
“We were really planned out, but at the beginning, with our animal kiss off, we only had a couple of ideas for them to do,” said Ryan Erwin, announcer for the event. “We went through them really quick and all couples were still in, so we had to start making some up.”
The next event was the Chocolate Unicorn. Couples stacked Ding Dongs, chocolate round cakes, on their foreheads. The first six couples to complete the task continued in the competition with Pink Elephant. Headbands with a slinky connected were placed individually on each of the couples foreheads. The couples worked together to get each slinky to stand in the upright position. The first three couples that accomplished this task proceeded to Mad Dog. Boxes of Tic Tacs were glued on to each end of a ruler. The couples had to place the ruler in their mouth and shake their head until each box was empty. The first two couples to succeed went on to the final round, How’s It Hanging. A banana was tied to a string and strung around the waist of each contestant. The couples, in turn, had to swing the banana between their legs and hit an orange down an isle into a hula hoop. The first couple to finish and win the competition was Hannah Anderson and Sam Anderson.
“The banana game was difficult,” Sam said. “Hannah accidentally hit her orange backwards and that set us back. I was worried there, but for the most part we did pretty good.”
Hannah and Sam each won $100 gift cards to the USU Bookstore.
“It was really fun to take a break from all the stress and be crazy and fun,” Hannah said. “It was just fun to cheer each other on and support each other.”
“I think the Amazing Race will be next for us,” Sam said. “They should do this every year. It was awesome.”
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