Atkins LLC Showcase celebrates, awards IU talent

Junior Pearl Scott said Mariah Carey’s song “My All” seemed right for the Atkins Living Learning Center Showcase. Her talent and the song won over the judges, and she took home the $300 prize.

“I wanted to give my all,” Scott said.

On Friday, the Atkins LLC had its annual talent showcase titled “Evening Affair in the Willkie Quad Auditorium.” On every table of the formal event was sparkling grape cocktail, candlelight and rose petals.

The “Dress to Impress” event was led by the presidents of the Atkins and Media LLCs, freshmen Frank Bonner and Daion Morton, respectively, as well as junior Tom Walker and senior BJ Grimes in the later half.

The Indiana Hoosierettes dance team donned cream and crimson and played a medley of hits from “NSYNC” to “This is Indiana.” The Alpha chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, the co-sponsors of the event, had a dance competition between two girl groups called “So You Think You Can Shimmy.” Senior Joe Musiel did a contemporary dance to Maxwell’s “Woman’s Worth.”

There were nearly 300 people in attendance.

There was a raffle throughout breaks in the competition, and people who had the best tweets won an Atkins LLC T-Shirt.

The two big names behind the motivation of this event: Thomas Atkins and B-Scott.
Thomas Atkins is known as the first black student body president at IU, which also made him the first black student body president in the Big Ten.  The Harvard Law School graduate was also known as the first African American to serve on Boston’s state cabinet secretary. Atkins was an essential part to desegregating the busing system in Boston.

Branden Scott, whom the showcase is named after, was a Groups and an Atkins LLC resident years ago 10 years ago. He went by the nickname B-Scott.

He, along with Eric Love, the director of Diversity Education, came up with the idea of an open mic night at Buffa Louie’s every other Thursday to create an outlet for artistic students like himself.

Love was very close to Scott.

“He came to me just about fiveyears ago, and he said that he wanted to do an open mic night,” Love said. “At the time, my friend had just taken over Buffa Louie’s. So I went to her, and I asked if we would do an open mic night at Buffa Louie’s. I thought it would open business for them and also provide a venue for us.”

Love said the open mic started small with only about five performers and 20 people in the audience, to having up to 30 performers and nearly 100 people.

A few years later, tragedy hit the Groups and Atkins community.

“He had moved to Atlanta and, I didn’t know this, but apparently he was dealing with depression and he took his own life,” Love said. “That has been two and a half years ago now. Even though he moved, he was still a major part of your campus while he was here in my office, in Groups and Atkins LLC. He had so many friends. He was
really popular.”

Love said for the past couple of years there has been a separate showcase in dedication of B-Scott. This year, they combined the two showcases together.

Love said in previous years they have made about $400 for the B-Scott fund. Love said the B-Scott fund would help students by providing financial assistance for counseling services.

“CAPS provides two free counseling sessions each semester free for students, but if you need a third one or fourth one, you have to pay 20 dollars,” Love said. “That’s a great deal, if you have money, but if you don’t have any money, then that’s really difficult to come up with. So this fund would kick in and help students who need another session or two to help them finish the semester.”

B-Scott was a poet and artistically creative, Love said.

“He was an incredible guy, great looking young man, great personality,” Love said. “He loved hip hop, he developed open mics, he put together some poetry slams, bought artists from around the region — we haven’t had that kind of energy since he passed.”

Sophomore Kira Ferguson, the co-chair of the event and an Atkins LLC resident, said she never thought she would’ve planned something like this showcase.

“I decided to ado it because it was appointed to me last year, but things kind of fell through, so I was like OK, we’re going to do this next year,” Ferguson said. “We going to do it right and get it done.”

Ferguson said she believed it was a job well done  with the others who helped organize the event with Atkins LLC, those groups being the Media LLC, Collins LLC and Kappa Alpha Psi.

“I think it went great. I was behind stage the entire time, but I could see it from backstage, and I could see that the audience liked it,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson said the Atkins residents are like family.

“Our floor is one of the best floors at IU,” Ferguson said, “Everybody comes to our floor and says, ‘I wish our floor was like this, everybody is just so close’. We get along, we laugh together, we have fun together.”