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The big return of the Feast

Plus, where did all those Purdue students come from? Going state-by-state on campus.

Dave Bangert

Oct 7, 2021

Leslie Martin Conwell rolled out of Fort Ouiatenon early Wednesday afternoon, where some of the thousands of participants were already staging for this weekend’s Feast of the Hunters’ Moon, a bit exhausted, but feeling good.

“I’m tired, and I’m happy,” Conwell said.

It’s been that way since Aug. 1 for Conwell, event coordinator for the Feast, and others sprinting to get the 54th annual recreation of 18th century life at an outpost along the Wabash River set up, after a year on the shelf due to the pandemic.

The Tippecanoe County Historical Association’s festival that draws at least 40,000 people over two days to Fort Ouiatenon typically is a matter of yearlong prep. Conwell said everything was on hold this year until TCHA had reasonable assurances that health officials thought the weekend of Oct. 9-10 would be OK for a large-scale, outdoor event.

“We wanted to be back so badly, but we wanted to be back in a way that was safe,” Conwell said. “Aug. 1 was our personal deadline, because we knew after that we could not hold this great machine we call the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon back.”

Friday will be the annual school day on the Feast grounds, with some 1,600 kids expected – down from the usual 3,000 to 3,500 in a non-pandemic year. The gates open to the public Saturday and Sunday.

Question: Tired and happy? It could be worse, right?

Conwell: I just came from the grounds. And it’s so wonderful to see everybody. We let some of them come in a little early to get settled and get into their new home for the weekend.

Q: How many do expect to participate this year, given all that’s going?

Conwell: We traditionally have about 6,000 that participate. I’ve been with the Feast since 1975, but none of us have ever been through this. So, we didn’t know what to expect. We were hoping for at least 60% to return. As of yesterday, we were at 80%. So, we’re pleased. We have lost a couple of the larger food booths – some just could not get enough volunteers. Also, food supply chain issues have been an issue.

Q: Who knew that an 18th century-themed festival would get hit by 21st century supply chain problems?

Conwell: In a way, I’m sure this exact thing happened 250 to 300 years ago, because they very much at Ouiatenon depended on a supply chain. And when you think about that, supplies were coming almost exclusively by canoe, there were all sorts of perils and weather and politics and things that could interfere. So we're probably not facing anything all that much different. I guess we truly are re-enacting a difficulty from the 18th century that, frankly, we've never experienced before. So I guess we're lucky.

Q: What are you expecting in terms of crowds?

Conwell: What we've been doing is going to other living history events once they were allowed to start again, beginning in late May. And also the local events here. What we are finding is very consistent. As long as the weather's good, people are coming out in droves and droves, because they want to be outside. They want to be together again. Plus – as Dr. Lindsey Weaver, the chief medical officer with the Indiana State Health Department, said in a webinar for event organizers – outdoors is the best HVAC system there is. We have that advantage in that we’re outdoors. … Things pretty much will go as normal. Though, visitors will see signage at the gate, stating what we all know about COVID.

Q: All in all, sounds like it’s going to be the Feast.

Conwell: We think so.

Q: Get some rest before it really gets going.

Conwell: Yeah, tired and happy describes it.

A few things about the Feast

Time: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday.
Where: Fort Ouiatenon, 3129 S. River Road, about four miles southwest of West Lafayette.
Tickets: $10 in advance, $13 at the gate and $18 for a weekend pass for adults; $5 in advance, $7 at the gate, $9 for a weekend pass for children ages 4-16; $30 in advance, $35 at the gate for a one-day family pass. Advance tickets available at feastofthehuntersmoon.org.
Schedule: For a full lineup of events and entertainment at the Feast, here’s the schedule.
Parking: TCHA has fields near Fort Ouiatenon for free parking. Neighbors also set up for paid parking in yards.

Shuttles: CityBus will run shuttles from the Ross-Ade Stadium parking lot at Purdue from 8:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Saturday and 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. The rides cost $2.
Food: Fair warning, a few traditional Feast food booths won’t be there this year, for various reasons, Conwell said. Among them: Forfar bridies, a meat and onion-filled pastry touted as the top-selling food item each year at the Feast; and the apple dumplings.

WHERE DID ALL THOSE PURDUE STUDENTS COME FROM?

If you’ve been on campus between classes, you know Purdue’s record enrollment of 49,636 is no joke. You can feel it. (Or you can just see developers lining up to fulfill a demand for rooms near campus. Case study No. 1: Latest development plans emerge at Chauncey Hill Mall. And it’s big. Really big.)

Driving much of this year’s 8+% increase, the fifth record enrollment in as many years, was a freshman class of 10,191 students. That was way over Purdue’s target of 8,450 and 11% more than the previous record, set last year.

In-state freshmen enrollment was up by 158, or 3.6% to a record 4,511. International freshmen enrollment was down slightly.

The big player: Out-of-state freshman enrollment was up by 1,184, or 32.5%, for a record 4,827.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Behind the numbers of another, though surprisingly big, Purdue enrollment record

So, where did all of Purdue’s out-of-state freshmen come from?

Purdue President Mitch Daniels rolled out the stats for Purdue trustees last week.

The top five states by overall enrollment in fall 2021:

Illinois: 1,015 (up 32%)
California: 667 (up 35%)
New Jersey: 305 (up 48%)
Ohio: 280 (up 53%)
Michigan: 249 (up 51%)

Here’s the full chart Daniels presented, with one-year and five-year trends for the top 11 states, outside of Indiana, for overall enrollment.

During a meeting Friday, students asked trustees what they were doing to make sure there wouldn’t be students stuck in temporary digs next year. Trustee Chairman Mike Berghoff told them the university looking to limit that sort of freshman overload next year.

“We got surprised by it, quite frankly, and it caused some problems,” Berghoff said.

Daniels said every student living on campus during this year’s record enrollment surge had a permanent room assignment by Aug. 14, more than a week before classes started. Daniels said the university had already lined up several hundred additional beds off-campus for next year, if needed.

“If there is another surprise, we hope to be fully ready for it,” Daniels said.

“Right or wrong, we learned something from this year,” Berghoff said. “The alternative was to tell (incoming freshmen), ‘No, you can’t come here.’ To tell 1,500 students, ‘You can’t come here,’ we didn’t like that alternative.”

Berghoff said Purdue will aim for 8,360 new students next year.

“We even contemplated in our meetings yesterday adding another dorm,” Berghoff said.

The status of those conversations didn’t go further at last week’s meeting.

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