Rain didn’t stop first-year students from arranging impromptu march through arches

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It is a St. Thomas tradition: Every year, new students gather on Tommie Tuesday to pass under the university’s distinctive arches in a ceremony called March Through the Arches.

When Tuesday’s rain forced school administrators to cancel the morning march, some St. Thomas students decided to organize an impromptu march themselves, set for the late afternoon.

Madisen Lundebrek, a first-year student, said she and her friends came up with the idea to host the unofficial march because they wanted to experience the St. Thomas tradition even if March Through the Arches was never rescheduled.

Lundebrek said her friend Martin Radosevic spearheaded the idea, spending most of Tuesday trying to inform students of their spontaneous march.

“He ran around telling everybody,” Lundebrek said of Radosevic. “He’d go up to random strangers and ask if they were freshmen.”

Kate Dolan, a first-year student, attended the march because Radosevic, who was running through the residence halls telling students that the march would happen, burst into her room in Dowling Hall to tell her about it.

“I was sitting in my dorm room with a few friends and this guy ran in–the door was open– and he was drenched,” Dolan said, adding that it looked as if he had just been outside in the pouring rain.

Instead, Radosevic was just sweaty from enthusiastically running between residence halls to spread the word.

After quickly explaining the details to Dolan and her friends, Radosevic left to inform the next room, Dolan said.

Dolan decided to attend because she was disappointed the well-known tradition was canceled.

“You hear it on the tour, you hear it at the overnight [visit], you hear it at orientation. Then you hear it’s canceled, and it kind of sucks,” Dolan said.

But the disappointment did not last long, as a large crowd of other first-year students gathered on Tuesday afternoon to show off their school spirit. Radosevic estimated that 200 to 250 students attended the march. The crowds can be seen in pictures Dowling Hall posted to its Twitter account.

Radosevic said President Julie Sullivan saw the students congregating near the arches from her office window in Aquinas Hall, so she came out to give a speech. “I’d like to put in a personal thanks to Dr. Sullivan,” Radosevic said. “It’s great to see she’s a real presence on campus.”

Lundebrek, who had spent Tuesday organizing the unofficial march with Radosevic, said the number of students that had gathered was surprising, and the event helped unify the class of 2020.

“We weren’t sure how many people were going to show up, but all these people did, and it was amazing to have [them all] there,” Lundebrek said. “The fact that everyone was able to come together on such a short notice makes me even more excited for the school year.”

Radosevic echoed those sentiments, saying that the unity the class exhibited was a good sign for the students’ upcoming four years at St. Thomas.

“It just really shows the enthusiasm and the energy that this class has,” Radosevic said. “It shows that we are ready to take on leadership roles and we are ready to take on great feats and accomplishments.”

“It was pretty cool, and kind of exciting. It felt like our class had a lot of Tommie pride,” Dolan said of the big turnout. “That’s something I’m probably never going to forget.”

Sophie Carson can be reached at sophia.carson@stthomas.edu