On Jan. 13, the Campus Activities Board (CAB) celebrated National Rubber Ducky Day with a rubber duck themed event titled “Just Ducky,” consisting of carnival style games and live ducks in Lawrence lobby.

“It started as a joke to have a whole rubber ducky themed event,” Shelby Armetta, sophomore business management and CAB Special Events Coordinator, said. “Then we’re like, wait a minute, this is actually a pretty cool idea.”

Armetta said that the idea of getting real ducks also started out as a joke, until the committee  decided to actually make it possible.

“We eventually worked it all out in less than a week, got the contract through procurement and got the payment figured out, and did all of it from Tuesday to Monday,” Armetta said. “It was very chaotic, but it worked out.”

Olivia Davis, freshman multimedia major, said that she was surprised to see live ducks. Based on the theme of the event, she just thought there were going to be rubber ducks.

“I was like ‘oh wow, there’s ducks in the lobby,’” Davis said. “They usually don’t bring in live animals, besides the therapy dogs.”

Megan McKenzie, sophomore journalism major, agreed with Davis in which animals other than therapy dogs were never brought to campus before.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this at Point Park. I know they have therapy dogs, but I’ve never seen ducks, so it’s really exciting,” McKenzie said.

Armetta said that the event exceeded her expectations in all factors, especially how excited the students were to be at the event and interact with live ducks.

“I think the overall attendance for the event was 181. The first hundred people were all there when the first 30 minutes of the event.” said Armetta.  “It worked out really well, that people enjoyed playing the games to get the tickets to then go see the ducks.”

Keith Timmins, six-year owner of the petting zoo Pony Time Ranch, said that he has brought his animals to campuses before. However, he did say that it was difficult bringing his ducks to Point Park, as a result of the traffic and city environment.

Timmins said that he cares about his animals and likes it when people interact with them, saying that animals make people of all ages happy.

“People don’t get a chance to learn about animals or interact with them. How are they going to care about them?” said Timmins.  “They’ll care more about keeping them safe in the wild and stuff like that, if they get to see what they’re about.”

Armetta said that she loves animals and believes that many other students do too, especially with how the “Just Ducky” event proved to be a big hit.

CAB is always creating fun, new activities in hopes to help students socialize and de-stress.  While planning for the “Just Ducky” event, they came up with the idea to bring cats from Animal Friends to campus in the near future at the event “Campus Cats,” which differs from the usual Campus Canines and calls out to cat lovers as well, said Armetta.  It was originally scheduled for Feb. 18, but has been postponed.