University At The Corner Of Lincoln Avenue

Youngstown State University (“YSU”) is an institute of higher education serving the Youngstown, Ohio area. The university has a quite high amount of professors teaching students rather than graduate assistants relative to institutions of similar size. Tuition is often among if not the lowest among the four year institutions within the State of Ohio. The campus area is safe, but operates in a rust belt city that is often associated with the lack of jobs ever since the departure of the steel industry in the late 1970s, crime, and political corruption ⇒.

Before considering the shirts that are directly related to the University, I would like to note that other free shirt related events have taken place at YSU. Three guys walking around on the third floor of Kilcawley Center ⇒ alerted me to the AT&T {Universal Card} shirt behind a sign. I spilled hot chocolate on myself while I was wearing the Fresno City Fire. The Youngstown Pride game where the national anthem singer was scalping tickets outside was played within Beeghly Center ⇒.

Last Thing Before Summer Vacation

To truly Dump N’ Run ⇒, one needs to either be an on-campus student resident at YSU or help such a resident move out of the dorm rooms at the end of the semester while placing only reusable materials in specially marked boxes. Donated reusable materials are then donated to charities. I remember the Dump N’ Run boxes had a design of an orchestra conductor with a look on his face like he was at his personal height of ecstasy.

Dumping and running is as close to dumpster diving as I have ever gotten when acquiring free shirts. Other students were allowed to take from boxes if they would actually reuse the materials that they found. I indeed have worn the Elect Dennis J. Kucinich President, Fish Stamps, and Wings, Suds, & Spuds shirts that I found inside the conductor boxes. This particular shirt was not found in a box. Nor was I even present during 2002 when this shirt was provided as an incentive. Donor Jim* gave this shirt to me a year later after finding it in his office while I happened to be around during a cleaning.

The name “Dump N’ Run” seems as if littering was encouraged or describing some sort of scatological high jinx. I felt that an investigation into the etymology of the name was warranted to reconcile the good that the program does with the odd moniker. It turns out that the first Dump N’ Run was co-ordinated between YSU Recycling ⇒ and 501c(3) non-profit organization Dump N’ Run, Incorporated ⇒. The lending of the name in the first year was part of the agreement to start the program, and inertia likely is responsible for maintaining word usage.

Local Wares

The Summer Festival of the Arts ⇒ (“Festival”) is an annual event held on the YSU campus that features tents with local artists attempting to sell objects by appealing to provincialism alongside some food vendors, some performance booths, and a constituent part though separately named Festival of Nations ⇒ which has ethnic pride displays, food and performances. There are no games, rides, nor tickets at the Summer Festival as the event is geared towards directly parting adults from their money rather than using their kids as proxies.

Forte on the Fifty (“Forte”) was a separate but related event that featured classical music and fireworks at the football stadium. The Forte used to always be held on the same weekend as the Summer Festival. As such, the small talk discussion of choice among the culturati during the Summer Festival when I got this shirt was the question of attendance at the Forte. Now that there are no more Fortes due to a campus building being constructed, I do not know what has become the default icebreaker at the Summer Festival.

Donor Dan* was able to get a clean shirt from a childrens’ painting booth before the rest of the shirts would be used to cover respectable clothing. The rationale for giving me the shirt was that my assured reuse was a better use of the fabric than the high likelihood of that any given kid probably would throw away a shirt that they have no attachment to which got paint all over it.

Wearing Out My Welcome Week

Welcome Week ⇒ is the official name given to promotional activities that occur during the first week of classes at YSU. I was present to get material during two years in the 2000s when there was just a table with shirts on it and someone sitting on a chair overlooking the process. Each year would bring with it a different themed Welcome Week during the era from which these donated shirts date. From what I understand, Welcome Week has gotten more elaborate but less thematic over time.

The 2003 theme was athletics. American college football fans might know of YSU due to Jim Tressel coaching the Penguins to four I-AA college football championships before coaching the Ohio State Buckeyes to one Bowl Championship System National Championship and subsequently leaving in disgrace after failing to notify the National Collegiate Athletic Association of Buckeyes players trading memorabilia for tattoos. American football fans may not know that the penalty flag was developed by another YSU football coach, Dwight Beede, and first used in a 1941 Penguins game against the Oklahoma City University ⇒ Goldbugs ⇒. Other than those achievements in football, I do not know of anything that would be of interest to anyone outside of the university’s service area considering that few Americans care about college athletics other than their own alma mater or the top schools in Division I of any given year.

Magic was the theme of 2004. The choice seemed odd considering that there neither was nor is a magician program available at YSU. I do remember asking at the time which part of the university would be interested in representing themselves through magic and being told it was Financial Aid. I suppose that magic is less depressing to think about than all the money that can not be discharged in bankruptcy court.

Though the two shirts are united in salutation, there was quite a difference between the rules to get each shirt. For 2003, the woman seated behind the table informed that I had to agree to watch a home sporting event and cheer on the Penguins before I would be given a shirt. Conditionals makes donations less than free. I took the shirt even though I never had intention of paying any mind to the athletic programs. I was already paying whichever dollars from my tuition that were going to support the buildings and extra tutors that the athletes received; the student-athletes were already provided with their free scholarships. The 2004 shirt was freely given to me without any sort of transactional expectation. I appreciated how the woman behind the table did not draw out the process of giving out shirts any longer than it had to be.

Local Palette

The 70th Annual Student Art Exhibition was held at the McDonough Museum of Art ⇒ from April 7th through April 21st of 2006. Seventy exhibits were selected out of one hundred fifty that were entered. The exhibition was juried with awards presented at opening.

Donor, Donor, Receiver, & Proofreader Adam* had a piece in the show and donated me the shirt he got for placing within the show. The double pleasure was mine for both the shirt and viewing his work.

I like to give known designers of free shirts their due. In this case, I was able to uncover through research that Samantha L. Grbinick created the front design of this shirt. I do not know anything else about the artist.