Lawmakers advance bill to study reviving Iowa State’s VEISHEA

‘These types of decisions about these local celebrations and festivals should stay at the local level’

Iowa State University students shout as they burn their underwear west of the Campanile tower on the university campus in Ames on March 26, 1999. Hundreds of students marched as a group through the campus, fraternity row and the Campustown neighborhood shouting slogans denouncing the university's decision to make its annual spring festival VEISHEA, the nation's largest student-operated festival, alcohol free. Only minor acts of vandalism occurred and there were no arrests. (AP Photo/Ames Tribune/Brian McLaughlin)

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DES MOINES — More than a century after its founding, nearly 30 years after a fatal stabbing marred its revelry, and just over a decade since it was canceled, the historic Iowa State University celebration known as VEISHEA could see a revival.

House Study Bill 545, which passed out of a higher education subcommittee Thursday, would require Iowa’s Board of Regents to study the feasibility of reintroducing VEISHEA — an Iowa State festival formed in 1922 and named after each of the university’s colleges at the time: veterinary medicine, engineering, industrial science, home economics and agriculture.

“The objectives of the study are to determine whether it is practical and beneficial to reinstate VEISHEA,” according to the bill, which would require the board to submit a report to both the House and Senate by November.

Although the student-run event for decades was characterized by parades, open houses, carnival games and performances, rioting and mayhem plagued the festival in the 1980s and 1990s, including in 1997 when a 19-year-old partygoer in town for the event was found stabbed to death on a fraternity lawn.

Members of Iowa State University Parents Association bike past Beardshear Hall during the annual VEISHEA Parade on the university campus in Ames on Saturday, April 12, 2003. VEISHEA is an annual spring festival at ISU. (AP Photo/Ames Tribune, Nirmalendu Majumdar)

Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, raised some of that dark history when asking his subcommittee colleagues Thursday, “Who’s asking for this?”

“Historically, there have been riots as a result of choices and behavior under the influence of alcohol,” Wilburn said, noting crowds ranging from 1,000 to 8,000 people have turned violent — causing thousands in damages to local businesses and restaurants. “One individual was stabbed — an out-of-town visitor was killed.”

Two helmeted Iowa State Troopers wrestle an unidentified Iowa State University student to the pavement Sunday morning, May 8, 1988, during a clash between law enforcement officials and partying students. About 2,000 students rioted when police tried to stop a party which had blocked a city street. A troubled VEISHEA history continued in the early 1990s with more rioting, a fatal stabbing in 1997 that led to an alcohol-free event in 1998, and another riot in 2004. That five-hour disturbance on Hunt Street in 2005 prompted the cancelling of the event for the first time in VEISHEA's 82 years. VEISHEA, a wholly-student-run event, was reinstated in 2006, but experienced more alcohol-related problems in 2007. (File) — Two helmeted Iowa State Troopers wrestle an unidentified Iowa State University student to the pavement Sunday morning, May 8, 1988, during a clash between law enforcement officials and partying students. About 2,000 students rioted when police tried to stop a party which had blocked a city street. A troubled VEISHEA history continued in the early 1990s with more rioting, a fatal stabbing in 1997 that led to an alcohol-free event in 1998, and another riot in 2004. That five-hour disturbance on Hunt Street in 2005 prompted the canceling of the event for the first time in VEISHEA's 82 years. VEISHEA, a wholly-student-run event, was reinstated in 2006, but experienced more alcohol-related problems in 2007. (File)

Event organizers, he said, were given several chances to maintain a festival “without riots and damage and death.”

“So again, in my opinion, these types of decisions about these local celebrations and festivals should stay at the local level,” he said, echoing Board of Regents lobbyist Jillian Carlson, who suggested having Iowa State do the report rather than the regents “since it’s an Iowa State-specific thing.”

“VEISHEA has been suspended a couple times throughout its history,” Carlson said. “It started off as celebration of the colleges that we have at Iowa State, but definitely some public safety concerns that we've had in the past — with riots and things that have happened. So that would likely show up in the report.”

Between 1985 and 2014, VEISHEA incited some type of violence or disruptive behavior in at least 12 years — including in 2014, when crowds swarmed the streets and threatened police, toppling light poles and critically injuring a student.

Aaron Clayberg, an Ames resident and personal banker for US Bank, shovels glass that was broken, Sunday, April 18, 2004. VEISHEA, an annual spring celebration at Iowa State University, got out of hand early Sunday, with several hundred people vandalizing businesses and cars in the campus area and police spraying the crowd with tear gas. Close to 25 people were arrested, police said. About 20 people were taken to a local hospital for treatment, but no serious injuries were reported. (AP Photo/Iowa State Daily/David Osterhaus) — Aaron Clayberg, an Ames resident and personal banker for US Bank, shovels glass that was broken, Sunday, April 18, 2004. VEISHEA, an annual spring celebration at Iowa State University, got out of hand early Sunday, with several hundred people vandalizing businesses and cars in the campus area and police spraying the crowd with tear gas. Close to 25 people were arrested, police said. About 20 people were taken to a hospital for treatment, but no serious injuries were reported. (AP Photo/Iowa State Daily/David Osterhaus)

Iowa State leadership, following several of the events, tried to impose changes to calm the chaos — instituting keg ordinances, updating the Student Code of Conduct, relocating VEISHEA away from Campustown, and even renaming the event and canceling it temporarily.

In 2014, after the masses tore down light poles — seriously injuring a student and leading to multiple arrests — then-ISU President Steven Leath canceled the rest of the event and formed a task force to evaluate its future.

That task force recommended ending VEISHEA permanently and possibly replacing it with something else — although the group warned, “A major springtime event at Iowa State, even if significantly retooled and identified by a different name, may still carry with it the baggage of unofficial VEISHEA.”

Although Wilburn on Thursday raised concerns not just with past VEISHEA violence and riots but with the mandate the Board of Regents produce another report — given the growing list already required of them — Rep. Heather Hora, R-Washington, signed off on the bill and advanced it out of subcommittee, saying that while she doesn’t know the reason the bill was proposed, “All this does is have them do a feasibility study.”

Ames city workers remove two light poles from the street that were knocked over early Wednesday morning of VEISHEA week, April 9, 2014 in Campustown after a large crowd filled the area. Beer cans and trash littered Welch Avenue once the people had left.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

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