HOUGHTON COUNTY, Mich. (WLUC) – After a month of building, Phi Kappa Tau in Hancock has won Michigan Technological University Winter Carnival’s overall snow statue contest.
“It obviously feels good to win, but I think this year, we definitely took a more approach to not making it about winning, and more about just being out there as a brotherhood and doing this for ourselves and the city of Hancock,” Phi Kappa Tau Snow Statue Chairman Ethan Mehren said.
The overall Carnival theme this year is ‘Knights, and Legendary Sights. Phi Kappa Tau’s project this year is called ‘In Search of a Maiden So Fair, Our Hero Enters the Dragon’s Lair’, featuring a large castle, a tavern, and ice helmets and weapons. Mehren says originality was a big focus for this year’s statue.
“The last couple of years, we’ve done it based off of something,” Mehren continued. “Like last year we did Gilligan’s Island, and the year before we did Willy Wonka. So, this year, we wanted to do something original, because that’s part of the grading rubric is originality.”
One of the month-long judges this year was Jim Desrochers.
“I’ve never judged before,” Desrochers said. “I’ve been coming to Winter Carnival for many years and finally decided to sign up and be a judge, be a part of the excitement.”
Desrochers explained to me before the scores were finalized that the judges first do a ‘first impressions’ scoring of the statues. This is before coming back later for more detailed scoring during a second tour. This is broken down by how close a project is to the carnival’s theme, neatness, details, and even how clean the snow is.
“It’s easy to walk up and be impressed,” Desrochers added. “The hard part about being a judge is trying to take these and decide which one is better than another one, and you have to use a lot of fine details to do that.”
The carnival continues into this weekend with fireworks, dog sled rides, and more to come. For a full schedule of events and a list of statue division winners, click here.
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