By Matthew Muir | Staff Writer
Baylor’s Bill Daniel Student Center celebrated its 71st birthday Monday. The SUB is a social hub for students — referred to as the “heart of campus,” the SUB is home to restaurants, a game room and is the spot that hosts Dr. Pepper Hour each week during the school year— a tradition nearly as old as the SUB itself.
Students from Baylor Union Board, a student programming group that hosts Sundown Sessions and UBreak, arrived late Sunday night to decorate the SUB. Center senior Chloe Gipson, a member of Union Board, was one of the students who spent their Sunday night placing hundreds of party hats across the building’s four floors.
“Decorating the SUB was such a fun experience… we actually finished putting up hats just in time to watch the SUB’s birthday roll in at 12 a.m.,” Gipson said. “I may or may not have fallen asleep on the couch while everyone else was singing happy birthday, but the SUB knows where my heart was at.”
Decorations weren’t the only festive fare to mark the occasion. Slow Rise Slice House in the SUB created a specialty pizza named “The Old Beaut” for the SUB’s birthday, and students from Union Board hid free pizza coupons inside some of the party hats. Forrest Turman, a Slow Rise employee, described the special creation, which will be available all week.
“We made a pizza that is chicken that was soaked [in] our own Dr. Pepper sauce that we make, then we also added diced yellow bell peppers and cilantro to give it that green and gold look but also add a little bit of flavor,” Turman said.
For Gipson, decorating the SUB is about more than celebrating the building’s 71st birthday; it’s also about celebrating her most beloved spot at Baylor.
“The SUB is my absolute favorite place on campus. Over the past almost four years, I have really watched this place grow and become a beacon of light in the Baylor community,” Gipson said. “The SUB is so much more than just a building to me. It is a place that I love, the place where I get to interact with people from all walks of life, the place that makes me smile on my rainiest of days and the place I call home.”
