The threat of rain did not deter 480 Keene State College seniors from participating in the 2014 Senior Pub Crawl Sunday May 4.
The participants were split into seven teams of roughly 80 people each and rotated from bar to bar around the city of Keene. Lab ’n Lager, McCue’s Billiards & Sports Lounge, Scores Sports Bar & Grille, The Pour House, Kilkenny Pub and Penuche’s Ale House each opened their doors for KSC crawlers and offered drink specials.
Crawlers looked forward to having a good time with friends. KSC safety major Edward Violette said, “I’m pretty excited. My friends and I all signed up for the same team. Twenty or twenty-five of my friends are all on the same team.“ Violette added that crawlers received an event shirt with their registration, explaining, “It’s a black shirt with your team color on it.”
Vanessa Brooks / Equinox Staff
Event shirts featured a cartoon beer bottle on the front, with the phrase, “Before we walk we must crawl,” surrounding the year ‘14 on the back.
Some participants said they enjoyed getting to visit multiple bars in one outing with friends.
“It’s nice to give all the bars the business instead of just one or two,” KSC senior Shawna Collins said. Crawlers also enjoyed gathering with friends before moving on from KSC. “It’s a fun thing to do before we graduate and split ways. We just want to have fun and be safe,” Collins said.
Orange Team member Madison Rosa added, “It’s a great time and a good way to end your college career. We are all in Greek life and we planned to have all Greek life on one team.”
While it was a fun night, some crawlers also saw it as a last outing before graduation. Jessica Furtado of the Orange Team said, “It’s awesome but we are sad. It’s a bitter-sweet pub crawl.”
Participants are also grateful for the community cooperation surrounding the event.
“It’s a great last-hurrah to be able to spend time with your friends. It’s cool that the school organizes it every single year and it’s great that the town supports it,” Orange Team member Austin Conran said.
Scores owner Ben Fournier said, “It went great. We had a great turn-out and everything went smoothly. The students were well-behaved and we had a great staff on.”
According to Fournier, Scores opened the entire back room for KSC crawlers, while the front remained open for other patrons.
“We brought teams in through the back entrance into the back room to control flow,” explained Fournier.
“It’s nice to see everyone together one last time before graduation. Each year it grows and we see more and more people. I think its a great thing,” Fournier added.
Noticeably absent from the lineup was Cobblestone Ale House, which only has a capacity of 60.
“Cobble is out but that’s because their capacity is sixty and now there are eighty on a team,” Red Team member Meghan Barrett explained.
“Not going there [Cobblestone] allowed the teams to grow from sixty to eighty—that’s 140 more people that can participate,” Collins explained.
Cobblestone representatives were not available for comment following the pub crawl due to presstime.
Since there were more teams than bars, a “break” had been added to the schedule, requiring teams to take turns sitting out one round.
Robyn Sall of the Red Team said, “We take our break last, so it just ends for us. If we had it in the middle, I probably wouldn’t come back.”
David Walsh can be contacted at dwalsh@keene-equinox.com.