The Orpheum Theater was home to this year’s sixth annual ASU Pitchfork Awards on Tuesday where nearly 30 awards were given out to accomplished on-campus clubs, staff members, students and organizations.
The event brought in hundreds of audience members who were ushered down a red carpet photoshoot with Sparky the Sun Devil. The ceremony was emceed by Katelyn Schroll, a junior human systems engineering student, and Monica Sampson, a journalism and theater student.
Some of the awards given out included: Best Cultural Program, Emerging Student Leader, Outstanding Interfaith Program and Intramural Team of the Year.
The student program, International Night, which is hosted by the ASU Coalition of International Students, took home the most awards, winning three out of the four it was nominated for. International Night is one of the largest cultural festivals at ASU that encourages the inclusiveness of various nations, traditions and cuisine.
Pitchfork Pantry also managed to walk away with more than one award, including The Changemaker Award For Social Change and Most Promising New Student Organization. Pitchfork Pantry began this past January with the mission of providing food for ASU students in need.
Pitchfork Awards: Celebrating distinguished Sun Devils from The State Press on Vimeo. Video by Marcella Baietto.
A student involved with Pitchfork Pantry, Rebecca Bender, a nutrition dietetics junior, was also runner-up for Best Intramural Female Athlete of the Year. Regardless, Bender said she was still thankful for the recognition that Pitchfork Pantry received.
"I'm speechless," she said. "The amount of support that we have gotten throughout our course of getting this program started has been amazing and breathtaking. It has been a blessing to be a part of this experience."
Bender said winning a Pitchfork Award was validation that Pitchfork Pantry is a necessity on campus.
"The students voted for us, so the students see that there is a need for it on campus," Bender said. "With the support we have gotten from tonight, it gives us a fire to keep it running and hopefully keep it going for the next years to come."
The award ceremony not only provided recognition to on-campus service organizations but also to the Greek life at ASU.
Tanner Karlinger-Gladney, a kinesiology senior, presented the award for Greek Man of the Year, which was given to David Roberts of Kappa Alpha Order, an on-campus fraternity.
Karlinger-Gladney said that being a part of such a large school can make it difficult to stand out, but the Pitchfork Awards enables students to be highlighted for their success.
"In a school of 70,000 students, it's nice to recognize those students who really can stand out in a very large population," he said.
Aside from the several pitchfork awards given out that night, four live performers took the stage to battle for the title of Best Live Performance. Audience members were encouraged to vote for the best act via Facebook. The student duo 76th Street won the award with one of their original songs.
Business management junior Angelica Rodriguez, a finalist representing student coalition El Concilio, said even though her coalition didn't win an award, she was grateful for the recognition it got at the ceremony.
"I think it's amazing that we got recognized for an event that we worked hard on," Rodriguez said. "Just being here and being nominated and people realizing that we did do a lot here at ASU is a pretty amazing thing especially as a coalition on campus."
Reach the reporter at mmbaiett@asu.edu or follow @marcellabaietto on Twitter.
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