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That dorm-room style

A bunny named Brambles and a minifridge

This Thursday, “Move-In Day” again made for a tumultuous scene at Fort Lewis College.

Incoming freshmen lugged suitcases up to third-floor dormitories. In the parking lots, parents – many of them fathers – were loaded up like pack animals. Inside the residential halls, the urgency with which mothers ferried vast amounts of bedding – sheets, pillow cases and comforters – up staircases brought to mind laundry day at the Playboy Mansion.

FLC sophomore Elizabeth Thompson, who was posted outside Animas Halls in case newbies needed technological assistance, said when it came to furnishings, incoming freshmen were showing all the right instincts.

“Minifridges are certainly out in full force,” she said.

Some new students were even avoiding rookie mistakes.

“I saw one person carry up a Tempur-Pedic mattress,” she said. “They’re doing it right.”

Dorm decoration 101

For freshmen, outfitting one’s dorm room is an experience fraught with uncertainty. Many practical items – a power strip, paper towels, salt and pepper shakers – never make it to college, which begins Monday at FLC.

Lacey Natseway of Laguna, New Mexico, said she’d forgotten to bring her toothbrush. Still, Natseway feared she’d overpacked.

“I brought four suitcases full of clothes, bedding,” an obligatory minifridge, “all the essentials and a basketball. I’ll have to buy a new toothbrush,” she said.

Jaclyn Drummond of Colorado Springs likewise said, “Oh my God, I brought everything possible!” This included her extensive collection of vinyl albums and, of course, a minifridge.

While incoming students all seemed to think they’d brought too much or too little, they broadly agreed on what items constituted “the essentials.”

Jeremy White of Flagstaff, Arizona, said he’d merely brought “the essentials: blankets, a printer, a laptop, clothes, bedding and a TV.”

Arthur Ray, a senior from Chicago who transferred to FLC last year, said he too had brought “the essentials” when he first moved into Camp Hall: “clothes, TV, video games. You know. The essentials.”

But like many upperclassmen, Ray said it takes a personal flourish to make a dorm room home – in his case, walls bedecked with motivational posters.

“Mostly, they were uplifting and inspiring, like a vision board,” he said.

Because kids starting college often worry about making new friends, ostentatious or thought-provoking items can offer insecure freshmen a kind of social insurance policy.

Ray recalled one classmate bringing a life-size mannequin to college. Despite being inanimate, the mannequin ended up becoming a very popular addition to student life at Camp Hall.

“She was clothed in construction garb,” he said.

Another clear-eyed student brought a quesadilla maker.

“That was a good idea,” said Ray, approvingly. “I thought that was very slick.”

FLC cribs

On Friday, some new FLC students already had vested their rooms with conversation pieces.

Aaron Lupton, an incoming freshman from Falcon, near Colorado Springs, had hung a Confederate flag in his dorm room.

“I never go anywhere without it,” he said.

His father, John Lupton, said that the flag reminds his son of their relatives in North Carolina, while Aaron’s mother, Tami, continued the grunt work of moving her son in.

Elsewhere, incoming freshmen Dan McAulliffe of Hingman, Massachusetts, and Andrew Cranmer of Fort Collins, who brought mountain bikes and guitars to college, left the hard work of unpacking for later. Instead, the boys discussed the merits of the enormous drum set that now dominated their dorm room.

“It’s important to have rhythm as a freshman,” McAulliffe said. “We’re supposed to have a little fun, aren’t we?”

Tamara Bowman, who was gallantly preparing to schlepp a guitar from car to her daughter Rayven’s dorm room, was sure Rayven would appoint her new roost with flair.

“Rayven made all her own bedding,” Tamara said, noting that Walmart’s linen designs “aren’t at all how Rayven works.”

Rayven, who is from Rhode Island, said she was most excited about the “glass craft studio” she’d brought to “do art projects.”

Rayven whipped out another prized possession and – depending on FLC’s electrical safety standards and her resident adviser’s blessing – a potential dorm room decorating coup: a Swedish lamp.

The lamp, which looked like a big white cotton ball, should have been ugly. Yet – a la everything IKEA – the interwoven plastic was somehow elegant, thanks no doubt to a socially enlightened, highly advanced area of calculus that’s only taught Scandanvian engineers.

“It makes me nostalgic for Goteborg in Sweden where I studied abroad for three months,” she said.

Brin Devone, a junior, said as a freshman she had used Christmas lights – a staple of dorm room decor – to brighten the place up, and festooned her digs with reminders of home, including what she conservatively estimated were, “like, hundreds of pictures, of family, friends and pets.” With the ingenuity of a true college student, Devone mounted the pictures using a long piece of string and clothes pins.

She teamed up with her roommates to acquire the room’s centerpiece: an electric bunny named “Brambles,” which provided pet-like companionship.

Still, Devone said when it came to dormitory statement pieces, other freshmen had gone too far. “A lot of boys brought surfboards here for their rooms. It was weird, but maybe cool – cool to them, I guess?”

cmcallister@durangoherald.com. Shaun Stanley contributed to this report.



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