Newsroom

CORVALLIS - Prepare for a flurry of feathers as Oregon State University students organize an attempt to break the world record for the largest pillow fight on Friday, Nov. 14 in the Memorial Union Quad on the OSU campus.

Everyone is welcome to join in the BYOP - bring your own pillow - event, said Lige Armstrong, an OSU senior in liberal studies, who is organizing the event. Would-be participants are encouraged to show-up in the Quad by 11:30 a.m. to sign-in for the fight. At 12:30 p.m., the fluff will begin to fly, Armstrong said.

The record for the largest pillow fight is 645 people, set at Anderson County Courthouse Square in Gannet, Kansas, in June, he said. The fight has to last at least 60 seconds, but it won't hurt if it continues a bit longer, Armstrong said.

Sports records aside, if Armstrong is successful, this won't be the first world record for Oregon State. In 1915, "Lady McDuff" - a white leghorn hen - earned the Oregon State Agricultural Experiment Station a world record in egg production. "Lady" was the first hen to lay 303 eggs in a single year. Appropriately, Lady McDuff's feat occurred 28 years after agricultural experiment stations were established by the Hatch Act.

The last OSU attempt to break into the Guinness Book of Records took place on Saturday, May 31, 1997, as students attempted to break the world record for the most students kissing at one time.

That attempt failed.

Armstrong's idea is actually an outgrowth of a project in one of his classes in small group problem solving. Armstrong and five other students were told to come up with a project suitable to the class curriculum, and after tossing about a flurry of ideas, the students decided on a pillow fight.

"We checked out the tug-of-war record," Armstrong said, but the pillow fight record seemed to be an easier goal.

"Everyone should come out for this; we need enough people to cover the Quad."