Comment: Special Events Center by Darryl Wood Weber State College has FINALLY decided to build a Special Events Center. Weber is the last of the four year institutions in Utah to have a Special Events Center built. Plans for the Center have been in the making for the past several years. The Center was finally approved last year and the fund drive to obtain community support began November 15, 1973. The structure is scheduled to be completed in mid-1976. Its opening is to be tied in with the Bicentennial Celebration of the United States. The Special Events Center will seat approximately twelve thousand people when completed. The building will be completely air-conditioned and to blend in with the surrounding landscape, earth will be shaped around the radially ribbed structure. The Special Events Center is to be located south of the WSC campus, near the corner of Harrison Boulevard and Country Hills Drive. At a cost of approximately $7,723,125.00, the Special Events Center should serve the Ogden community as well as the college. Inflation is raising the cost of the Center by $70,000.00 per month. Funds for the center will be raised by selling seats, memorializations and a large donation from the Donnell B. Stewarts. Seats will be sold for $200.00 apiece. Residents of the community that buy these seats will have their names placed on a plaque in the Center. Even though they will own the seats, they must buy season tickets each year for all games and other events in the Center. Money for the Special Events Center will also be raised by the memorialization of other parts of the Center. Scoreboards, press rooms, reception rooms, trophy cases and the Wildcat Room can be memorialized by people who wish to donate money in memory of a dead friend or relative. Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars is expected from seat sales and memorializations. Major contributors to WSC Campus development, the Donnell B. Stewarts, have agreed to match all funds, dollar for dollar, that are raised in the seat sale and memorialization campaign. The remainder of the money needed for the Center will come from the sale of revenue bonds, student building fees, and income from college operations. Money is already being collected from an increase in the tuition fees of all students at Weber State College. This increase, nine dollars per quarter, began last spring and will continue until the Special Daryl Wood, RETROSPECT Commentator Events Center is completed. A three phase program was developed to collect the funds for the Center. These include, first, an invitation to businesses and industries around this community to participate in the seat sale campaign. The second phase will be to acquire special donations from interested people who do not wish to have reserved chairs or memorializations. Third will be to seek donations for the memorializations of different structures in the Center. In the first phase of this funding campaign, seventy-five thousand brochures, explaining the aspects of the Special Events Center, were distributed. This phase started on November 15, 1973 and will continue until all funds are collected. As of January 1974, $550,000.00 had been collected. Dean W. Hurst, co-chairman of the fund drive, then stated, "The response to date has been heart-warming". Now let us look at some of the pros and cons of building a Special Events Center for Weber State College. The first negative aspect of the Center is its proposed location. If WSC is going to build a Special Events Center, it should be located on campus. The Center could be built easier and probably cheaper on campus. It could be placed east of the Peripheral Access Road and north of 4100 South Street. WSC already has this land available and if it were then used, WSC could finally get some use out of the Access Road. This would save money and bring WSC buildings into a more centrally located position where students and visitors could use parking on campus instead of paving parking lots some place else. The second negative aspect is funding. Weber State College is using money for the Special Events Center from students who are attending the school now. Figuring an average enrollment of only nine thousand students, each paying nine extra dollars per quarter for the Special Events Center, $810,000.00 will be collected from students who will possibly never use or even see the Center. If students are to pay for the construction of the Center, only those students who are on campus when the building is completed should have to pay for it. The students who are here now are paying for something that means nothing to them now and WSC could probably use student money for things of higher priority. In my opinion, the Fund Rising Committee is not going far enough in its efforts to raise money. It should look into the possibility of selling leases for food and drink concessions in the Special Events Center. Companies will surely be willing to pay for the advertisement and exclusive rights to sell their products in the Center. These companies could probably also be persuaded to pay for the construction costs of putting in their booths and stands. The Fund Raising Committee should also be getting funds from the Athletics Department, since they will be using it the most. The Committee should also check with the Big Sky Conference Athletic Association to see if they could secure money from them, since the Special Events Center will surely enhance the Con-ference and its member schools The third negative aspect of the Special Events Center is that there has been little community involvement in efforts to raise money for it and little community support for it. Weber State College will remain Harrison High School if it does not actively try to enhance its stature in the community. WSC should go out into the Ogden community and promote the Special Events Center. The Center is not just for Weber State College's use and it should be stressed that the community is always invited to use it. If this is done, Weber's image in the community should grow and more funds should come in for not only the Special Events Center, but also for the development of the entire WSC campus. One good aspect of the proposed Center is that it should bring greater support for Weber State College from the community. This can be accomplished if WSC is willing to sacrifice and think of its students and the community before it self. The $7.7 billion needed for the Special Events Center is a small amount to invest for the future support and good will that can be obtained from not only the community but also from the students of today who will be the future alumni. The response by the community so far in donating funds for the Center has been very promising and is perhaps an indication of the community's interest in WSC. If more of the Ogden community showed this much interest in Weber State College, perhaps the college would have fewer problems in receiving funds for all the many worthwhile projects needed on this campus. Even though the Special Events Center could have had better ideas in the planning stages, it is still a very worthwhile project that shows the foresight and knowledge that can help Weber State gain wider recognition as the only school in the West that is the "total" college, the only school that has everything to offer its students. The Center should help not only WSC's athletic program, but also Ogden's entertainment and cultural programs by allowing these programs to have a greater freedom in the selection of acts that can be brought to Weber State and Ogden.* Addendum On Saturday evening, March 23, a special recognition banquet was held in the Union Skyroom Restaurant. An announcement was made at this time that two families were donating $1,000,000. each to the Special Events Center. Mr. and Mrs. Donnell B. Stewart had pledged $500,000, but at the banquet they doubled their donation. In connection with the Stewart gift, Mr. and Mrs. Laurence T. Dee made public their donation $1,000,000. Considered to be a $2,000,000 family gift (Mrs. Stewart's mother was Elizabeth Dee Shaw, a sister to Lawrence T. Dee; they were son and daughter of pioneer industrialist Thomas D. Dee) the new name for the complex is the Dee Events Center. Weber State College President, Joseph L. Bishop, commented that the $2,000,000 is believed to be the largest cash gift to a Utah public institution of higher learning in the State's history. A resolution was passed by the Weber State Institutional Council officially designating the structure as the Dee Events Center. The resolution said in part . . . "In recognition of the common ancestry that unites these two donor families (Dees and Stewarts) and symbolizing a proud heritage in the community and state, the Special Events Center ... be officially designated 'Dee Events Center' and so memorialize one of the community's proud pioneer families long associated with industry, integrity, charity and honor." '(This editorial does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the rest of the RETROSPECT staff or of the WSC administration)