Tonight, Campus Activities Board is hosting its annual Open Mic Night. This event is free to all students and will be held in the Dawg House of the Colvard Student Union at 7:30 p.m. The first 16 students who signed up in the CAB office will perform first, and if time permits, they will allow students from the audience to participate as well. The event is expected to be a success with a large turnout of performers and audience members.
  CAB Student Director  Lacey Johnson says the Open Mic Night event, which is in its fourth year now, is a great way for students to get more involved on campus and is a vehicle for meeting others who share their special talents.
  Alice Furr, the Division Head of Campus Creations for CAB, said she believes having a fun atmosphere for students to showcase their different talents will really benefit them.
  “A wide variety of performers are encouraged to participate. Musicians, vocalists, comedians, dancers and other performing artists are welcomed,” Furr said.
  Open Mic Night has provided success stories for some of the MSU students. Jalesa Parks, an english major who participated in the event last year, has been writing her own poetry since she was 16, but has never performed it in front of an audience until recently. She said participating in Open Mic Night was very beneficial for her act and it fueled her poetic writing skills even further.
  “Open Mic Night allowed me to showcase my talent by simply opening the doors for my act. I had never been one for public speaking, but it allowed me to come out of my shell and do something that I love to do, which was recite poetry. I had been writing my own poetry for a while, but I never really had the chance to let others hear it. The event did not just cater to one genre of talent; it embraced my talent and actually promoted it,” Parks said.
  This event has exposed Parks’ talent, she said, and has provided her with many other performance opportunities.
  “Because of Open Mic Night, I became ‘the girl who does poetry,’ and since then I’ve been asked to do more reciting around campus. Open Mic Night definitely opened doors for me,” Parks said.