Tag: Community

Roy Moye III ’15, along with fellow WSU grad Justin Noel Hall ’14/19, competed on the TV game show Don’t Forget the Lyrics!, hosted by actress and comedian Niecy Nash. Moye and Hall, who met while students at Wichita State, traveled to Ireland for filming of the show’s May 30 episode, “It IS Rocket Science.” Despite not advancing to the $1-million-prize round, Moye says the experience was “a phenomenal time.”

The episode featuring Moye as a contestant with Hall as his “backup singer” — which in the game show’s parlance means a supporter who can be brought on-stage to help figure out the right lyrics to the song being performed – carries this descriptive overview: “an aerospace engineer shows off his out-of-the-world vocal chops.” In the competition, Moye was challenged to sing with the studio band as lyrics are prominently projected on screen until, all of a sudden, the music stops and the lyrics disappear. To move on to the next round, he had to sing the correct missing lyrics or to use one of his backups, for instance, to call in his backup singer.

Moye, who holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and is a former design engineer at Spirit AeroSystems, where he now works as a talent acquisition specialist for the Wichita-based company, showed his vocal chops with a lyric-perfect performance of Mario’s “Let Me Love You.” It was the lyrics to the Isley Brothers’ 1969 funk single “It’s Your Thing” that ended up tripping him up.

Faced with uncertainty about the song’s missing lyrics, Moye used another form of backup instead of calling on Hall, who, Moye says, he was thinking to save for upcoming rounds. Hall, meanwhile, knew he knew the lyrics. A two-time graduate of Wichita State with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music performance, Hall is a Wichita-based actor, model and musician with almost two decades of piano, percussion and vocal performance experience under his belt. He’s also half of the music duo Nikoyle Noel and director of music ministry at Holy Savior Catholic Church in Wichita.

Moye’s and Hall’s appearance on Don’t Forget the Lyrics! isn’t their first time to share a stage. Back in their college days at Wichita State, they each competed in the first ever Shockers Got Talent contest, which was a featured event in the festivities for Homecoming 2014: Cirque du WSU. Moye won with his version of Bruno Mars’ “Treasure,” taking home $2,000 in prize money. Hall was awarded the third-place prize. Two years later, Moye and Hall returned to campus as judges for the 2016 Shockers Got Talent competition. Now back in Wichita from their foray to Ireland, Moye and Hall are sharing their game show experiences. Don’t miss these two Shockers offering up their thoughts about “all the laughs and lessons we learned on this journey” on their two-part YouTube vlog — both parts are aptly titled: “What We Learned from Being on a TV Game Show” and “It’s Your Thing, But You Still Need Help!”

Wichita State is typically a quiet place on the weekends, but on a select Saturday each spring, the campus reawakens for a group of Shockers who have created a tradition all their own: the WSU Pub Crawl.

The crawl, now in its ninth year, began as a small affair. A group of upperclassmen from the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Wichita State thought it would be a fun, and slightly humorous, way to spend a Saturday among friends.

“Originally it was a bit of a joke – we only had two bars near campus at the time: Kirby’s and The Fieldhouse,” said Alex Durano ’17, who helps coordinate the crawl each year.

But what began as a small gathering of friends has turned into an event that more than 100 alumni – old and new – look forward to each spring. As the campus has grown, so too has the crawl, which now includes stops on the Innovation Campus at Fuzzy’s or Social Tap, and the Shocker Grill and Lanes in the Rhatigan Student Center. Some years, if schedules aligned, it kicked off in the outfield of Eck Stadium.

“The event has gained traction and increased in popularity over the years,” said Durano. “The added stops show past and future alumni the progress the university has made.”

And alumni come from all over. Some fly in from places like Chicago, Denver and New York, all marking their calendars to return to their alma mater for the tradition and a reunion of friends from college. It has branched out as well, with significant others joining the pilgrimage to haunts old and new, and friends from the Wichita community getting a glimpse of all the campus has to offer.

In recent years, Durano and the other primary organizers, Josey McNorton ’17 and Taylor Freund ’15, have added a philanthropic element to the day.

“I typically design koozies themed with various artwork found around campus, such as Joan Miró’s mural, “Personnages Oiseaux,” or the sculpture of Millie the Millipede,” said Durano, who sells the koozies to attendees and donates all proceeds to the Shocker Support Locker. “Having a purpose to rally behind that could also benefit students on campus was a no-brainer. I had read an article about how many students face food insecurity and know the Shocker Support Locker is vital to supporting those struggling members of the Shocker community.”

As the crawl winds its way in a long line of participants from one stop to the next, those who attend know it’s much more than an opportunity to relive their “college glory days.” It’s a testament to the friendships that endure long after graduation, and a welcoming invitation to foster relationships between different generations of Shockers.