By: Deja Footes, Lions Eye Staff Writer, dmf5475@psu.edu (updated by the Lion’s Eye Web Staff)

On Wednesday October 7, a K Cup decorating event was held on the campus lawn during common hour in front of the Commons Building.

As classes were letting out, the lawn filled with several students who were ready to start decorating K Cups. They painted them with various designs, including one with different colored polka dots, and one with a pumpkin to fit the Halloween theme. Even though this wasn’t an art contest, a lot of students showed their artistic skills.

Most importantly these cups were being painted for a good cause. Once these K Cups were decorated, they were donated to the nearby Tyler Arboretum for use during the holidays. The Tyler Arboretum is one of the oldest and largest arboreta in the northeastern United States.

This event was based on a campus read book called Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash. Participating in the K Cup decorating allowed students to learn “sustainable practices, and practice positive actions based on themes in the book.”

In the midst of this fun event, basketball player Kevin Zwolak enjoyed getting to be an artist.

“It was nice to decorate the K Cups,” Zwolak said. “I’ve never done this before. It was also nice to create art because I don’t really do it a lot. I’m happy we are painting for a good cause.”

Sounds like all the hard work he did paid off. Be sure to stop by the Tyler Aboretum down the street to lookout for the K Cups.

By: Michael McCarrick, Lion’s Eye Writer, mqm5415@psu.edu (updated by the Lion’s Eye Web Staff)

When the sun sets at this time of year, a large meadow down the street becomes the scariest place on earth, with a history of terrifying myths about monsters, killers, and spirits.

The Bates Motel and Haunted Hayride at Arasapha Farms in Glen Mills is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and its goal is to make the experience more memorable than ever.

The Bates Motel is more than just a money-making business; it’s a family celebration of horror and Halloween. The cast of actors playing the wild characters in the corn maze, hayride, and haunted house aren’t classically trained or struggling theater actors looking to make some quick cash. They’re just regular people, a cast of characters who all have one thing in common: they love to dress up and scare people.

It takes a long time to get into makeup, and some have to don a mask made of rubber or plastic. The outfits, no matter how ludicrous, are put on, and, as the sun sets, they sneak past the customers, find their spot, and wait, and wait for the first victim.

The Bates Motel is just one attraction customers need to go through to get the full experience; they also need to visit the Haunted Hayride and Corn Maze. For the hayride, customers get on a large tractor full of hay and go on a long ride through a medieval castle, graveyard, slaughter house, hillbilly neighborhood, and an underground tunnel. Actors are simultaneously popping up from behind with screaming, blasting animatronics.

The last part of the ride shows the Headless Horseman galloping by on a real horse where customers exit while listening to the theme song of Ghostbusters.

Following the hayride is the corn maze, with a dark, tight tunnel as an entrance. This time people can have one-on-one interaction with actors and explore the horrific world of the circus, Wild West saloons, swamps, and much more. Look out for scarecrows, it’s hard to tell which one is a full of hay and which is a person!

Finally, there is the Bates Motel House itself, a tighter and darker path of horror. Anywhere a customer goes someone is watching and waiting in the wings. Chills and thrills abound as they encounter ghosts, cannibals and a live coat-hanger!

Penn State Brandywine students Nick Raffaele, Herbie Williams, and Anne-Marie Bruce have full access to the farm every night because they are employed and paid actors of the attraction.

“I wanted to work on Arasapha Farms because I was always into Halloween; it’s my favorite holiday,” Nick Raffaele said. “I wanted to work there but wasn’t 18 yet, so I made my own haunted attraction in the woods. Once I turned 18 I signed up. I always love to entertain and scare people.”

Now that he is able to work there, Raffaele has nothing but good things to say about the environment. “Everyone who works there is really nice,” Raffaele said. “You’re able to be something you’re not. It’s cool to become a zombie and act as that character to scare people.”

Professional scarecrow and student Herbie Williams enjoys the job as well. “I like meeting new people, making friends and seeing everyone,” Williams said. “I like seeing their [customer’s] reaction: whether they run or not, or are just not scared at all.”

The actress known as “the girl in the rising chair” with a fork in her neck, Anne-Marie Bruce, loves working there, too. “It’s really fun to scare people, and even though I’m a small girl, I’ve made men scream and run in terror,” Bruce said. “The whole staff is like a big family; they’re all really friendly and helpful.”

This year’s Bates Motel trip was a success and will be back for students to enjoy next Halloween season.

By: Deja Footes, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, dmf5475@psu.edu, updated by Lion’s Eye Web Staff

On October 6, Penn State Brandywine hosted this year’s Poet Laureate Dr. Carol Reardon who spoke to an intrigued audience about war.

Since 2008, PSU has honored faculty who have “brought greater visibility to the arts, the humanities, the honoree’s work and the University,” by naming a poet laureate.

Sitting in the audience, I wondered why anyone would study or speak so deeply about war. Luckily, my question about why Reardon studied war was answered by her stating, “How can we not?”

Reardon went on to explain how war is deeper than people just killing each other. “Something as complex as war touches everybody in so many ways we never expect to see,” she said. Reardon chose this topic of military and American history because she feels like she had no choice.

She also told her audience that one of the highest levels of war is strategy, and that it is good to think about the strategy as a three-legged stool. One of the legs stands for ends, meaning what you want to accomplish or what you want to do. Another leg stands for way, meaning how to go about accomplishing the specific goal. The final leg stands for means, meaning how to accomplish the strategy.

Having a strategy should be the main focus when going into war because the issue must be solved, and thinking about it in this way helps to understand the parts of the solution. “We really have to think about what happens when we send a nation to war,” Reardon said. “We are not always in control, oftentimes because of a lack of understanding.”

War affects each and every one of us whether we are in it or not, so it is useful and mandatory that we go into war being able to fully comprehend its outcome, and most importantly, the causes. Reardon maintains that war is much deeper than the weapons and people killing one another; it is about the reason behind it.

Reardon is also an author of many publications such as: Launch the Intruders: A Naval Attack Squadron in the Vietnam War; Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory; Soldiers and Scholars: The U.S. Army and the Uses of Military History.

She has been awarded many times for her accomplishments. Her first award was the William Woods Hassler Award for Excellence in Civil War Education in 2004. In 2007, she was awarded the George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching by Penn State University. This particular award from Penn State is the highest level teaching award one can earn.

It is safe to say that Dr. Reardon has had a positive impact on many people as a military historian.

By David Brown, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, dvb5451@psu.edu  (updated by Lion’s Eye web staff)

The cross country team is breaking barriers here at Brandywine, and nothing seems to be slowing down.

Head coach Corey Smith, and former star runner at Villanova University, is almost finished his second season as head coach, and has already found success. With a championship meet coming up, Brandywine cross country has set the bar high.

Sophomore Annie Mueller, a key runner for the woman’s squad, had a lot to say about individual and team success so far this season. Mueller, a homeschooled student who only ran as a hobby, became interested in cross country during her tour here at Brandywine and has exceeded expectations ever since.

“I am really competitive, even a little too much,” Mueller said about her “Runner of the Week” award.  “I always want to finish first, no matter what and I feel like there is a friendly competition that goes on with the team as well.”

Mueller said the entire team has improved.

“The team is really strong,” Mueller said.  “We now run in pairs and groups in practice and help motivate each other. The guy’s team is really strong as well.”

And the team has become more than team to Mueller.

“The whole team has been very friendly and supportive,” Mueller said.  “An occasion I remember is, during a race we were running up a .4 mile hill, and I remember Robyn (Gannon), who is really strong on hills, motivating and pushing me through it.”

Coach Smith described his coaching experience at Brandywine.

“It’s been great,” Smith said.  “It’s my second season as head coach and I’ve been lucky enough to have great kids to coach.”

Smith has done a great job for the cross country program and every runner for the men’s and women’s teams has improved his/her times.

“I don’t think it’s me,” Smith said.  “It’s the kids, they are doing the hard work and success snowballs for them. Coach Iain and myself put together a workout program and they do it. It’s about making the kids believe in themselves and at the end of the day it’s about family.”

Smith has found successful personally and with the team.

“I just love the sport, as an athlete or a coach,” Smith said.  “Some of my best mentors were my coaches and teammates. I love sharing what I learned and passing it on to the kids.”

The cross country team has an opportunity to make history and Coach Smith has nothing but confidence in his squad as they come up into a championship meet.

By: Kevin Dallatore, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, kzd5241@psu.edu, updated by Lion’s Eye Web Staff

Holocaust survivor Esther Bauer came to Brandywine in October during common hour to talk about her experiences during the Holocaust.

Through her amazing recollection, those in attendance were able to picture the events of her life and get a closer look at what happened during this tragic time in world history. It was a moving speech that had everyone interested in learning as much as they could—at times, aghast and others, angry.

Bauer, who was born into a middle-income family in 1924, lived in Hamburg, Germany. When she was 9 years old, Hitler came to power. She recalls that, at that time, people were not sophisticated and, to shield her from the truth of Hitler’s reign, her parents did not tell her the truth of Hitler’s plans. After Hitler began to control Germany, her father, a Jewish teacher, was no longer allowed to teach the Jewish children who attended public schools. This trend continued as her mother, a doctor, could not go to work anymore, and Jewish people were not allowed to walk in the parks.

When the Nazis burned the synagogues in 1938, Bauer and her family were forced to wear the yellow stars on all of their clothing. “I can remember a man who got up from his seat on the subway and said to me, ‘please sit down.’ I knew that not all Germans were bad people,” Bauer said.

Another one of the rules enacted was that she and her family had to move from the home in which they lived in Hamburg to a Jewish apartment where there was no hot water and no heat–until they received a notice they were to move to Theresienstadt, a Jewish ghetto camp which is located in the present Czech Republic.

Upon arrival to Theresienstadt, they were forced to leave their suitcases on the floor and walk to the top floor of the building. While walking up to the top floor, she caught a glimpse of a young man, who would later introduce himself as Hanza, standing in the kitchen. Once she got up to the top floor where they were forced to sleep, they slept with nothing to comfort them. Their suitcases never made it to their rooms either.

Six weeks after her arrival at Theresienstadt, her father came down with meningitis and died. Later in her stay, Bauer also suffered health issues as she came down with pneumonia so severe that Hanza, who could not speak German but brought translators with him to speak with Bauer, found a doctor for her. Hanza was also able to get Bauer a job in the offices at the camp so she didn’t have to work in the fields. While working in the offices, one of her co-workers was able to teach her Czech so she could finally communicate with Hanza. Apparently the communication helped because they secretly married when they discovered he was going to be transferred to a different Nazi camp.

One of the main characteristics of Theresienstadt was that it was a temporary holding camp, and those in the camp would not be there for a long time. This was true for Bauer who was told she could be reunited with Hanza since she was his wife. Bauer made the hard decision to leave her mother behind to move to the camp in which Hanza was supposedly located. It was on the train that Bauer realized she was not going to be reunited with Hanza; she was actually going to Auschwitz.

As she recalls, Auschwitz was a dreadful place. Upon arrival she was told by the Nazi officers to throw all the food she was carrying over the fence because the Nazis would not allow them to carry it in. The lady who was standing next to her decided she was going to do as she was told and was immediately shot and killed.

As Bauer got as settled in as she could at Auschwitz, she received the new job of making metal rivets for German airplanes. She would work on these pieces for 12 hours a day with no breaks during her shifts.

In one of her many feisty moments during the speech, Bauer mentioned that she tried to make some of the pieces as short as possible as an act of sabotage so that none of the pieces she made for the planes would fit.

During the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, Bauer was finally freed from Nazi rule and soon moved to the American occupied city of Lintz. While in Lintz, she was able to reach out to a family member who had moved to Illinois. They gave her an affidavit to come to the United States, and she arrived in New York in the June 1945.

As she finished her story, she opened it up for questions. The audience learned that Bauer does not feel guilty that she was able to be liberated while 6 million others were killed. Rather, she is happy that she was given the chance to live her life, marry, and after her husband’s death nearly 50 years later, meet her “boy-toy” Bill and tell everyone about her story.

“I couldn’t talk about my experience for the first 20 years. For the next 20 years, no one seemed to care, and now for these past 20 years, it seems like everyone wants to hear my story, which I am happy to tell,” Bauer said. “I would like for those who have heard my story to learn that everyone should look to see that the events that took place in my youth never happen again.”