As students returned to campus to kick off the Winter 2026 semester, the Student Program Board (SPB) returned to one of the classics with Big Ticket Bingo. Over a hundred students participated in SPB’s first Friday event of the year, with only the luckiest walking away with a Polaroid camera, Air Pods and a Roku TV.
The Habitat was the venue of preference for the friendly competition hosted on Jan. 9. The occasion introduced many freshmen students to campus culture while also welcoming back a few recent graduates and alumni into the Grizzly community nostalgia.
Now a homecoming tradition, the Bingo Night also brought familiar faces to the stage, like Logan Pizzurro, WXOU’s music director and manager, who hosted the event and has become a recognizable face of student engagement.
“I’ve just been here a while,” Pizzurro said. “I’ve just been here a long time with both WXOU and SPB, I’ve been helping out at basically every event they’ve done.”
And he is not lying; whether it’s conducting Casino Night giveaways in front of hundreds or coordinating the tech for the Battle of the Bands, Pizzurro appears to be in every major event on campus. As a DJ for OU block parties and ‘social at the circle,’ a radio show host, or a board member for niche clubs like the Ceiling Connoisseurs, he has been part of shaping culture at OU.
“I got here in 2021, that was, you know, fresh off of covid—still recovering from covid—and seeing these events grow with bigger on campus appearance and more people, more enthusiasm this year has been like the most enthusiastic I’ve seen people so far,” Pizzurro said. “It’s been really cool to see that kind of change and kind of grow, what I used to hear Oakland to be like before the pandemic.”
As part of the new SPB eboard, Pizzurro has been working alongside other emerging leaders to leave a mark on campus culture.
“Our goal as a new eboard is to not repeat anything,” Maggie Bassett, SPB treasurer, said. “Obviously, we have our traditions, like Haunted Hallways, Big Ticket Bingo is a tradition, annual events, but a lot of our events this semester are completely new. We’re not trying to recycle everything and we’re trying to do some new events.”
A mental health fair and a Drag Queen Bingo are some of the new ideas the 2025-2027 eboard will be hosting alongside staple events like Casino Night in an attempt to diversify how they connect with students.
“I just think that it’s nice to see students get involved in the community and it’s fun to get everyone together once in a while just to see who’s there,” Trinity Thao, SPB vice president and creative director, said. “We’re trying to make ourselves known as a new board as well, too. So we’re just making sure that we’re putting ourselves out there.”
While most of the major events hosted by the student organization are already planned out and their budget utilized, the ideas keep coming for SPB, as they imagine the possibilities for events outside of campus.
“I made two proposals,” Cameron Warshawsky, SPB operations manager, said. “One was for the Toledo Zoo for their Christmas lights and the other was Frankenmuth. A Christmas lights event would be really great.”
With fresh perspectives, Bingo night also allowed students to share what other events they would like to see featured. Intense UNO games, hide-and-seek and family feud were some of the ideas pitched by students. More often than not, if students want it, SPB has already thought about it.
“One thing that I’ve kind of always thrown around, you know, for either SPB or WXOU to do is like a ‘Fraternity Feud,’ like Family Feud, but with the fraternities or the sororities on campus,” Pizzurro said. “I feel like that would be pretty fun. There’d be some pretty fun dynamics with that, I think, but I don’t know. It hasn’t gone through for one reason or another. I’ll leave the idea on the table.”
