Intramurals and Recreation to Wheel in New Activity

Editor-in-Chief

Courtesy of Gary Marshall

Weevil Wheels - Members of Gary Marshall's Communications of Small Group class and members of the Creative Society pose with the Weevil Wheels bicycles at Intramurals and Recreation Dec. 16.

   Intramurals and Recreation will be wheeling in a new activity, adding to their current sports and equipment available for student, faculty and staff use.

    The area of Intramurals and Recreation received bicycles, known as Weevil Wheels, from the Creative Society Dec. 16 and plan to have them available for use soon.

  Senior Micah Bateman, a double major in both speech and physical education and health, worked with a group in her Communications of Small Groups class to come up with the idea.

   She suggested to her group having the bicycles available at the John F. Gibson University Center. She said the U.C. already has a system in place to rent sports equipment.

   Current UAM students, faculty or staff will be able to check out a bike using their IDs. Student workers will hold the borrower’s ID card while they use a bicycle. The bike will have locks and keys for borrowers to secure the bicycles when they are not riding it. When the bikes are returned, borrowers get their IDs back. 

   Upon renting a bicycle, renters will receive a card verifying the U.C. has their card; if something happens, they know where to find their card. Bateman said the card will be used due to the new rule, which requires students to have their ID on them at all times.

   “So, we’ll give them a card that states where their ID is and they will return the card, the bicycle and the lock and key to get their ID back,” Bateman said.

  Riders will probably have to sign a piece of paper saying they are riding at their own risk.

   Bateman said by having the bicycles, it would be another way for people to exercise.

   “I think it would get students more active,” she said. “I think it gives students more opportunities to get to do something they usually wouldn’t get to do.”

   Gary Marshall, professor of speech and adviser to the Creative Society, developed the idea of finding new uses for the bicycles by having his Communications of Small Groups class find a new home for the Weevil Wheels because they were not being used.

 “They were sitting over in Jeter Hall with no one riding them and I thought that was just a travesty,” Marshall said. “Every time I would go into that room over there I would just say, ‘what a shame these wonderful bicycles are just sitting here and nobody’s riding them.’”

   The Creative Society collected and repaired the Weevil Wheels bicycles. They distributed the bicycles to the campus starting Oct. 25, 2007. In all, the Creative Society, Journalism Club, Lady Knights, other organizations and volunteers prepared eight green bicycles for campus use. 

  The Creative Society refurbished the bicycles to provide free student transportation from place to place. Marshall said the idea was for students to ride, but when they parked it, it would be there for another student to use.  He said the organization’s plan to put out the bicycles on campus didn’t work.

  “(The bicycles) tended to just get wrecked instead of ridden,” Marshall said.

   He asked the class what they could do with the bicycles. The project required each group to develop an idea for the bicycles to use either by the public or for charity.

   Members of the Creative Society, who worked to repair the bicycles, decided which ideas they liked best. The painted bicycles would go to Intramurals and Recreation and the remaining bicycles will be donated to the Junior Auxiliary of Monticello to be given to children at Christmas.

  Another group developed the idea of sending the bicycles to Africa through a church organization. Marshall said the Creative Society thought it would be interesting to see the Weevil Wheels rolling through Africa, but they thought it would be better for the UAM community to use them.

   For more information about the Intramurals and Recreation’s bicycles, contact Micah Bateman at mcb4224@uamont.edu.

For Additional Reading:

Weevil Wheels Debut at Homecoming

Creative Society Provides Wandering Weevil Wheels, Plans Mocha Madness

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