Hotel Co. creates memorial; wins sculpture contest

By Elizabeth Kennedy
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

If there is one lesson cadre members try to teach their freshmen, it is that with teamwork and determination anything is possible. The Hotel Company freshmen proved they have learned that lesson well when they created the winning snow sculpture during this year's competition.

Every February, snow is bulldozed into huge piles on the Upper Parade Ground so that over the course of a two-week period each company in the Corps of Cadets can turn the mound of snow into a sculpture, which represents a predetermined theme.

This year the theme was "American Pride."

It took three different designs, but in the end Hotel Company, who won, created a replica of the Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

On the first day, Hotel Company constructed a snow astronaut, but four days into the creation it fell over while the platoon was working on it.

They tried to rebuild the astronaut, but it was knocked down two days later by some "wacky upperclassmen," said Robert Stigers, a 22-year-old international studies major from Issaquah, Wash.

With only 12 hours left before the competition deadline, the cadets took the advice of their drill sergeant and started constructing the tomb. It is a monument which was easier to build and also more meaningful to the Norwich population, said Sean Conboy, an 18-year-old political science major from Reading, Mass.

"We said 'we want to win this thing. We're going to win this thing.' And that's pretty much what we did," Conboy said. "We came together as a company. It was a total team effort; everyone was out there working. Everyone did something."

The freshmen relied on the expertise of William Milam, an 18-year-old criminal justice major whose home in Calvert County, Md. is only 10 minutes away from the real monument in Arlington, Va.

Even though the platoon had been up all night working on the sculpture, it won because of it's creativity, effort and originality, according to contest judge Matthew Crowe, a 23-year-old international studies major from Heidelberg, Germany.

The tribute, like the construction of the tomb, needed the individual talents of each member of the platoon. Stigers played the bagpipes, Milam narrated the ceremony, and members who were accomplished in drill and ceremony played the role of the guards.

"It looked extremely well, the judges all agreed," said Crowe. "Even without the ceremony, they still would have had more points than the rest of the companies."

Regimental Commander David Cedarleaf, a 22-year-old political science major from Fairport, N.Y. was at the ceremony, as requested by the Hotel Company freshmen.

"It was done really well, and it was a fine tribute to the fallen," Cedarleaf said. "I've seen it done in Washington before, and I was able to directly compare it to that ceremony. It was sharp with a lot of precision."

"So many times we could have quit. After it fell the first time we could have quit; and after the someone knocked it over the second time we could have given up," Milam said. "But we stayed out there because we didn't want to start something and not finish."

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