The French Club held a Mardi Gras party Feb. 9th in sponsor Rebekah Diser’s classroom. While there was no throwing beads or partying through the night like in New Orleans, it was still an authentic celebration.

“[We made] masks, [had] king cake and had zydeco in the background,” Diser said.

Mardi Gras, which originated sometime in the 17 or 18 century, has a long, colorful history. Traditionally, Catholics held a celebration the day before they started Lent, and ate and drank before giving up excess until Easter.

“It’s a French tradition,” Diser said. “It’s really big in Louisiana, and I decided it would be fun.”

Diser opened up her room for students to come and celebrate the holiday after school. Although the party was relatively small, the club ran into other problems while scheduling.

“We meet every the first and third Monday of every month, but because of the weird schedule, we didn’t go to school [either] Monday [in January] and things were happening later that week,” club president senior Sierra Kingston said. “We did not meet for a good three weeks, [which] made it difficult to tell everyone what was happening. So I just took responsibility for the party.”

With the French Club in charge, it fell to Kingston to plan everything. She organized the day of the event, planned activities and bought supplies.

“[The cake] was a hassle, because I went to five stores for that and the masks,” Kingston said. “Originally, I wanted to do a couple other things, but we were unable to because of certain things that we couldn’t find or little things here and there.”

Despite the scheduling confusion, the French Club managed to pull in students even outside the club.

“I’m pretty happy [with the turnout.]” Kingston said. “We actually had more people than we do on a regular basis.”