A Passion for Pride

By Kristen Scheirman

BOULDER, Colo. - Sunlight streamed into Folsom Field, glaring off the now empty stadium seats as a jumble of green clad CSU fans rushed onto the football field, laughing, screaming and cheering.

Finally victorious.

It had been years since the CSU football team had defeated CU. Freshman Demi Sullivan joined in the celebrations, feeling a sense of unity, team spirit and pride in her school. It’s her favorite CSU memory. It’s because of that memory, in part, that she decided become a Ram Welcome Leader this summer. She wanted to help other people create their own special memories.

“ Getting people to feel welcome in a place is my passion,” Sullivan said. “I want to get people to love CSU as much as I do. Here it’s like, ‘Hey, c’mon, be a part of our family.”

As a Ram Welcome Leader, she was in charge of 20 girls from Allison Hall. She took them to the scheduled events. Showed them around campus. Befriended them.

One morning she needed to wake the girls up at 6:40 am. She arrived to a dead silent dorm floor so she placed speakers throughout the hallway and blasted Miley Cyrus’s new song “Can’t be Tamed.”

I can’t be tamed, I can’t be saved
I can’t be blamed, I can’t I can’t
I can’t be tamed, I can’t be changed…

Up and down the hallway, girls poked their heads out their doors, looking disgruntled, sleepy, and amused.

“Demi turn it off. That’s awful!” they yelled.

“I was like you have another hour to get ready, let’s go,” Sullivan said. “Miley Cyrus at 6:40 in the morning, whoo, what a day.”

She still keeps in contact with some of the freshman and enjoyed her experience so much she wants to be a RAM orientation leader next year.

“I’ll get to meet like 4,000 people instead of twenty,” Demi said. “It’s going to be exciting.”