It started out as a simple but friendly holiday competition between two TTI departments housed close together at SHRB. Now it might just become an intense annual rivalry.
Employees with Network and Information Systems (NIS) and Human Resources (HR) were given less than a week to decorate their doors with a Christmas holiday theme. The door decoration contest had numerous entrants — seven from HR and nine from NIS. The winning entrant would give their group holiday cheer bragging rights.
“This was something we did at AgriLife several years ago, and that’s where the idea came from,” Linda Edge says. “When the NIS folks challenged us, we were all in.”
The two departments settled on the judges (Don Bugh, Becca Simons and Duane Wagner) and, on December 12, the winners were selected in several categories with one overall champion.
The door decoration winners in HR were:
- Prettiest door – Linda Edge
- You’ve Got to Be Kidding (not applicable – so a second “Prettiest” category established) Tie – between Wally Simpson and Lauren Othold
- Most Original – Elvia Olivia
The winners in NIS were:
- Prettiest door – Thomas Motyka
- You’ve Got to Be Kidding – Brian Long
- Most Original – Bradley Hoover
Hoover was declared the overall winner. His NIS entry was a take-off on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, complete with a formerly-live, 9-point buck. The whitetail deer head sticks out of the door a good two feet and a blinking red light sits atop the deer’s nose. A sign below his stall reads: “Don’t Feed Rudolph.”
Asked about his door decoration, Hoover admits that the deer mount belongs to a relative and his “original idea” only came to him after a Google search. “You can find everything on the Internet,” the chief information officer says proudly.