By KURT HAUGLIE

khauglie@mininggazette.com

HOUGHTON – It’s been a low-snowfall-amount winter so far, but despite that, the Michigan Technological University Winter Carnival will still take place, even the snow-sculpture building, according to Laura Bulleit.

Bulleit, who is Tech assistant dean of students, and faculty advisor to Blue Key, the student organization, which organizes Winter Carnival, said most events will go on as usual, except possibly the ice-fishing contest and snow statue building.

“We’ve been looking at alternatives,” she said of statue building.

When students get back next week, Bulleit said there will be discussions within Blue Key about what, if any, changes should be made regarding statue building.

Although statue building in years passed has required clean snow, Bulleit said one of the things to be discussed will be the possibility of allowing dirty snow for the statues.

The month-long statue construction is set to start at 12:01 a.m. Monday, but if snow amounts don’t increase, Bulleit said one alternative may be allowing the month-long statues to be smaller in size than they traditionally are.

“We haven’t made any final decisions, yet,” she said. “There’s been several options flying around.”

If there isn’t enough snow at the statue sites, Bulleit said one possible alternative may be to create a central storage location from which statue builders could collect snow.

There is enough snow to go ahead with other planned events, such as skiing, snowboarding, broomball, the stage review and queen contest, Bulleit said.

“There’s no question about the other events,” she said.

However, with the realtively warm temperatures so far, Bulleit said the ice may not be thick enough for the ice-fishing contest in Chassell.

The theme this year for Winter Carnival is “As Snow Accumulates At Alarming Rates, We Show Our Love for the Fifty States.” It runs from Feb. 3 to 6, Bulleit said. The All-Nighter sculpture-building starts at 4 p.m. Feb. 3. Sculpture judging starts at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 4. The stage review is Feb. 4.

More information about Winter Carnival can be found at mtu.edu/carnival.