From Sunday, April 26, at 3:00 a.m. to Monday, April 27, at 3:00 a.m., Carleton College’s student-run radio station, KRLX, hosted a 24-hour lock in at the Record Library (Ribe). Throughout a variety of activities, students could move in and out of the Ribe at will. Still, they were invited to stay the entire 24 hours provided they showered beforehand, per promotional materials.
“We initially were going to show all these movies. We [showed] Good Morning Vietnam in the morning, I tried to make [selections] radio adjacent,” said Ribe Director Jimena Oliva ’27. “And then we had a No Fidelity (NoFi) collaboration. One of the planned events was a games tournament, and I was thinking Bananagrams and that sort of thing, but people brought their own games, which was fun.”
History professor Bill North also visited the Ribe at 8:00 p.m. on April 27 to read Frog and Toad as a bedtime story. Oliva noted that this event garnered the highest attendance.
Oliva is credited with organizing the Ribe lock in, which is the first of its kind.
“Jimena basically did the whole thing,” said Hudson Benites ’29, who serves as Promotions Director for KRLX. “She planned the events, she did the outreach to connect with Bill North. The events that happened throughout, all her ideas. She was basically the one heading the whole endeavor.”
“I got [to the Ribe] around nine o’clock. Then I left at noon for 20 minutes, and then I came back and stayed until after 5:00 p.m,” said KRLX Programming Director Zoe Wang ’29. “I ended up doing more homework than I thought I would be able to get done, which was nice,” she added, highlighting the laid-back mood of the lock in.
Wang, Benites and many attendees did not sleep overnight in the Ribe. Still, some embraced lock in’s challenge, essentially living at the Ribe for 24 hours and leaving only when necessary.
“I got there at 3 a.m. on Sunday, and I was kind of planning on staying up for a little bit, but that quickly changed,” recalled Oliva. “I had a radio show, and then I had to leave, so I left around nine, and then I [returned], and then we stayed kind of up until 3:00 [a.m. on April 27], even though we were all asleep by the end. I will say that the people who stayed the longest were Tucker Morrison and Claire Saunders.”
Although the lock in could easily have been mistaken for a gaggle of friends camping out in the Ribe, KRLX originally attempted to host the event as a fundraiser, but that avenue ultimately did not come to fruition.
“Initially, the plan was for it to be a fundraiser, where you get a sponsor, and for every hour that you are in the Ribe, your sponsor donates a certain amount of money to whatever organization that we, as [the KRLX] Board, decided,” Oliva noted.
Because the Ribe is considered a public space, the fundraiser plan was halted. “There are some [Student Activities Office] rules about fundraising in public spaces, which the Ribe is, so [we] weren’t allowed to do that,” said Benites.
This lock in is the first of its kind, so its organizers and attendees were stepping into unexplored territory with what to expect.
“I guess less people came than I expected, but the Record Library isn’t that big, so maybe that’s actually a plus,” said Wang. “So we played card games and had some homework time, told stories, talked to each other. I guess it was nice to get to know the people who came a little bit more.”
Oliva sees more lock ins in the future and is considering how they can bring more people into the Ribe. Oliva explained. “I feel like it would be a good winter term activity, just because it’s like people are staying inside.”
As Promotions Director, Benites reflected on how KRLX could reach out to more of the Carleton community, noting that he and those who attended the lock in could have used social media to share updates. Still, he expressed excitement for the future, concluding, “I think it also could be way better next year. I think that if we start planning it in advance more, we can get clubs to come in and do events.”
