Alpha Chi Omega hosted their annual Block Party event on Thursday on Fountain Mall with Sigma Chi, the first time these groups have paired for this event.

Julia Chinn and Mary Church Terrell entered the spotlight at “Biographies in Bold: Black Women & U.S. Systems of Power” Thursday afternoon. Award-winning authors Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers and Dr. Alison Parker discussed their books about these women at 3:30 p.m. in Moody Memorial Library’s Schumacher Flex Commons.

While the rodeo events and live music performances won’t begin until Friday, the grounds were for attendees to enjoy food trucks, local vendors, carnival rides, a petting zoo and even mutton busting.

If I hear one more person groan when the words “Taylor Swift” are uttered, as if her existence is an assault on their eardrums, I might just lose it. But here’s the thing: the people who canonize her as if she’s the sole beacon of light guiding humanity? Also crazy. Neither blind devotion nor knee-jerk disdain is interesting.