Todd Vanderwerff

If city and school officials are to be believed, Hobo Day 2003 went off without a hitch.

Despite the cold, thousands lined the streets of Brookings early Saturday morning to watch Bummobiles drive by and the Pride of the Dakotas make its way through the city.

Attendance at the afternoon’s game was only 8,460 and that number dwindled as the game went on, due to the cold.

However, according to Grand Pooba Mark Jobman, the turn-out for Hobo Week events was exemplary.

“I think things went awesome. The crowd participation among all the students coming to all the Hobo Day events was just amazing,” Jobman said.

Jobman said he saw many freshmen at the events and he thought they were getting into the Hobo Day spirit.

Even though it was very cold, Jobman said things ran very smoothly. He said there were no major crises.

After a week of non-stop work, Jobman is looking forward to a chance to catch up.

“I crashed all weekend,” Jobman said. “It’s pretty much catch up now and catch up on all the homework I missed.”

Jobman was so busy that he didn’t get to go out at night and observe the parties or downtown scene at all.

Brookings police chief Tim Tompkins, however, went out

on both Friday (Halloween) and Saturday night. He was downtown both evenings and saw few problems.

“Friday night was a hoot. Walking downtown, I had a blast. I was frisked by someone in a police uniform and I was accosted by someone in a sumo costume,” Tompkins said.

Tompkins said that the weekend was like a normal weekend in Brookings, just with larger crowds. At his level, things were fairly quiet this year.

While the numbers for all citations are not available yet, Brookings county sheriff Marty Stanwick said that there were 15 DUI arrests to Hobo Day 2002’s 16 DUI arrests. There were 45 total arrests this year, as opposed to 31 in 2002, though three of this year’s arrests were for previous warrants. However, seven of those arrests were for drug-related offenses. No arrests were made in 2002 for drug-related offenses. These arrests made up half the difference between last year and this year.

“My understanding is that things went pretty well,” Stanwick said of Hobo Day.

Tompkins said that he felt things were quieter because people have taken it upon themselves to behave responsibly.

“(People) understood that (Hobo Day) is something we want to see continue and it’s up to us to police ourselves,” Tompkins said.

Toby Uecker also reported on this article.

#1.886606:2635298226.jpg:front.jpg: A train of celebrating students winds its way through the parade.: