A walk through time
Elisa Wells, Staff Writer
Photo Courtesy of Abigail Thompson
Imagine returning to your college campus 20 years after graduating and stepping into a scene that vividly brings your student life back to you, complete with a familiar sight of your school’s mascot.
On April 25, 2025, the Aurora Agency, North Greenville University’s student-run public relations firm, received an award from the South Carolina PRSA chapter for its historical campus tour.
The tour was designed for alumni visiting campus for homecoming. For this event, Aurora partnered with students from the theatre department to be able to put on skits and make the tour interactive. The tour featured five stops across the campus where student dressed in appropriate period attire and they would perform a scene from a specific era in NGU history.
Originally, alumni would receive the same tour as the prospective students. But they decided it was not helpful since the alumni already went to school.
Paige Owings, junior strategic communication major and member of the Aurora Agency, said that she was grateful and honored that they won the award.
She said, “I feel like I played such a small part in the original project. But to see it come together and to have four of the five members who worked on the original projects there with me to receive the award was cool.”
Ansley Welchel, instructor of communication, highlighted one memorable moment from the tour. In one skit, students reenacted a time when NGU did not allow rock music. The students were playing “boogie boogie music” when the dorm mom ran down and told them to stop playing the music.
The tour also addressed changes over time, including the university evolving mascots. One of the major goals was to showcase all the different mascots. Jason Rose dressed up as a Mountie, Gary Wenzel as a crusader and they had a surprise visit from blazer.
Welchel said, “It was a surprise us when we rounded the corner and we knew that the other two were going to be there but then here comes Blazer out the door through Plaster.”
