UNR 'Assassination Game' to raise awareness of Colorado shootings

RENO, Nev. -- The Colorado school shootings won't stop University of Nevada, Reno students from blasting each other with squirt guns in a traditional "assassination game" on campus next week.

Rather than canceling the annual event where students stalk each other across campus with water pistols, student leaders have "decided to turn this into an awareness deal," a university official said Friday.

Each participant will wear a simple blue ribbon folded in half in remembrance of the victims of the attack at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

The "assassination game" is part of the 86th annual celebration of Mackay Week - a week of games, barbecues and music honoring John Mackay, one of the mining barons of the Comstock Lode whose family helped build the university.

"Obviously this was planned well in advance of any 'Trenchcoat Mafia,"' said Jake Wiskerchen, UNR's vice president of programming for the student body.

School leaders considered ditching the game when the shootings occurred on Wednesday.

"Then we decided, wait a minute, we can turn this into something kind of cool," Wiskerchen said Friday.

"We'll distribute ribbons with each packet and ask everybody who participates in the game to wear them," he said.

"We decided before anybody else brought it to our attention that we would take some proactive steps."

The game has been popular on the UNR campus for years, he said.

Students receive a packet with a squirt gun and a profile of a fellow student. They are assigned to "kill them and take their packet."

Students still "alive" at the end of the week are eligible to win a VCR.

Brian Dankowski, a student leader who helps plan traditional events at the school, said Mackay Week is the "longest-running tradition on campus."

The earliest Mackay Weeks featured the same kind of booths in a student-constructed village featuring everything from kissing booths to bake sales.

"It's wonderful to participate in a tradition like that," Dankowski said.

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