Savannah Sawyer
Assistant Features Editor

The 12th annual Alpha Step Off event will take place at 7 tonight in Lovett Auditorium.

Alpha Step Off is a dance and step competition featuring the sororities and the fraternities along with other organizations on campus.

The event is put on by Alpha Phi Alpha and Zeta Omicron Chapter at Murray State.

The competition will feature seven to nine minute choreographed routines from each team competing. There will be three different categories in which participants can place. Those categories are as follows: fraternity, sorority and residential.

All of the participants have been practicing day in and out to prepare for tonight’s event.

The sorority Sigma Alpha Iota has been doing its part to get ready for the competition on time.

“We have rehearsals every night, Monday through Thursday from 9 p.m. until midnight or so,” Kathryn Reinhardt, junior from St. Louis, Mo., said. “We’ve been building props and sets and raising money for the penny wars.”

The penny war raises funds and will benefit the winning teams in each category.

“The Alpha’s set up a penny war between all of the divisions competing and whoever raises the most money, it adds more points to their score,” Reinhardt said.

Alpha Step Off allows people to express themselves. Reinhardt said she was looking forward to seeing everyone convey themselves in ways they might not typically.

“To see people express music in a different way and to see people that may not usually express themselves in that way get to on a large scale,” she said.

The event is for a great cause, she said.

“People should attend the event of course to support the (March of Dimes) philanthropy and also just to become more cultured in different ways of dance and music,” Reinheardt said.

Tickets can be purchased at the Curris Center until 2 p.m. today for $7 and at the door of Lovett Auditorium for $10.