ST. GEORGE – Breaking a world record has become a Dixie State tradition during D-Week: a week to honor past and present Dixie traditions. The record the Dixie State University Student Alumni Association set out to beat on Thursday was the number of people to pop party poppers simultaneously. Although the effort failed, the party popper event was chosen to honor the retirement of DSU President Stephen Nadauld and spirits remained lively.
“This is a first for us,” Nadauld said. “It is not like an everyday event to break a world record.”
According to Guinness World Records, the current record for the most people popping party poppers simultaneously is 743 people, set by Grey Court School in Richmond, Surrey, U.K. in July 2013. DSU did not achieve their goal of breaking the record, falling short with only 592 people.
“A lot of people came, and a lot of people enjoyed it, and that is what the whole point of it was, to bring the community together to the college,” SAA member, Austin Fackler said. “The main thing was to celebrate President Nadauld and everything he has done the last five years at the college.”
An extremely large amount of planning goes in to taking on such a major challenge. The first step to break a world record is to send an application to Guinness World Records. Once the application is reviewed and accepted, Guinness will reply by sending an information packet about the specific guidelines and rules that need to be followed. After the record breaking occurs, those who broke the record have to send video evidence to the Guinness office in London. The footage is viewed by record adjudicators to verify that a record has been broken and no cheating occurred.
“We had about 30 people helping out here at the event and trying to study up on world record qualifications,” SAA member Kayden McDonald said. “You have to have a certain amount of stewards per 50 people, two witnesses that can’t be related to the event at all, and videos of all of the entrances and exits.”
This is the first world record attempt that Dixie State failed in since the tradition began five years ago. Last year they broke the record of the most people simultaneously throwing paper airplanes, 560 people participated. In 2012 the record set was the longest thumb wrestling chain ever recorded with 400 participants, beating the previous record by just 90 people. Other records broken include longest massage train and world’s largest arm wrestle.
Even though the record was not broken this year, this is a popular Dixie tradition that the community is heavily involved in.
“It is something to take the kids to and something the whole family can be a part of,” Valerie Reeves said. She attended with her husband and two kids. “Just having the community come out and support Dixie is such a great part of our community. We love Dixie.”
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