Bernarda Carranza
Staff Writer
“Relax, gamble and gossip” were the words that kicked started CAB’s Mystery Dinner on Tuesday in the Campus Center Ballroom.
As students arrived to the ballroom, they were each given a folder labeled ‘confidential.’
Inside the mysterious folder contained information about the character they were playing for the night, things only their character knew about the night and the people they needed to talk to.
It also held a piece of evidence.
Students entered the room with a formal ambiance of nine tables.
CAB served Buca di Beppo and handed out gift bags for the first 50 people who arrived.
The fictional mystery themed dinner centered around the casino, Paramount Party, owned by Ronald Trump in Las Vegas.
The casino was said to be the “largest and most extravagant” in the strip, but it had recently reported great losses of money.
It appeared someone had been stealing from it.
Trump along with Agent Avery, an agent for the FBI, were looking for the culprit among their own staff over dinner.
The more than 70 students present had to mingle with each other impersonating their character and following the rules that were given to them in their folder.
Cole Conway, the booking manager, walked around with confidence.
Meanwhile, gambler Ace High, who had recently suffered from a large loss of money, walked around the ballroom looking anxious and worried along with his wife, Hustling Hailey.
Also in attendance were an Elvis impersonator, a cocktail waitress, a security manager, a bartender, a show girl and a lounge singer.
The night took a toll as the students playing Ace High, dropped to the ground while sobbing Hustling Hailey cried over her husband’s dead body.
Students then had to investigate the murder with the evidence given to them.
CAB’s Mystery Dinner concluded with prizes given to the first three people who guessed the culprit of the murder.
To their surprise, the murderer was none other than Ace High’s wife, Hustling Hailey.
“I always thought it was fun to do a mystery dinner,” said sophomore business major and CAB’s philanthropy chairwoman, Danielle Garcia.
“I thought it would bring the campus together and it’s a good way to also meet people,” she said.
The event had an initial purpose of raising awareness of sexually transmitted diseases but members of CAB thought the concept would be lost in the mystery themed dinner, Garcia said.
“Initially what we wanted to do was have somebody instead of getting murdered to have someone affected by STDs,” Garcia said.
“But it was harder to do, so that’s why we just decided from the beginning that we were going to keep it a mystery dinner,” she said.
“I thought it was an STD awareness event, but I was confused on how a murder related to STDs,” said sophomore psychology major Katherine Suarez.
Despite some posters around campus advertising the murder mystery as an STD awareness event, it was not addressed as such at the dinner.
“I guess they tried to incorporate that in,” said senior biology major Eduardo Fernandez.
“It was like how easy it is to intermingle and how easy it is to blame someone else,” he said.
“But it was really fun to see people get crazy and get into character,” Fernandez said.
“A few times (I got into character) but not as eccentric as most people here but it was fun, I have no problem being someone else for a night,” Fernandez said.
Bernarda Carranza can be reached at bernarda.carranza@laverne.edu.
