Hobo Day celebration for 2012 is already underway and Abby Settje, an advertising and graphic design double major from Corona, S.D., is the new Grand Pooba.

Settje said she is feeling very excited and anxious for some of the projects set to take place. One of the main tasks of the Grand Pooba is to oversee the Hobo Day committee, as well as different events that take place during Hobo Week.

Typically, Hobo Week follows one central theme. For example, last year followed a zombie-theme called The Night of the Living Hobos, but this year there may be no theme for a variety of reasons.

“There really isn’t a specific theme for next year because it’s the 100th Hobo Day celebration and the theme is within itself,” Settje said. “It’s not the best idea to have a strange theme and have future students or members of the community look back and think that it was an inappropriate theme for the 100th Hobo Day celebration.”

As the Grand Pooba, Settje will have potential to build skills ranging from communication and teamwork to other leadership values. Settje said she really hopes to gain a variety of lessons from being the Grand Pooba.

“I really want to meet more people, have more leadership opportunities and to really give back to SDSU because the school has done so much for me,” she said.

Although there is a lot to look forward to as Grand Pooba, there is also the chance of struggle. Settje said instead of running the Hobo Day committee connected to the University Programs Council, the committee has a program all of its own, something that used to happen in the past.

Nick Wendell, assistant director of Student Affairs, said, “There has been so much positive feedback because of the changes that are taking place. The plan is to give [this] Hobo Day more prominence because it is such a milestone being the centennial Hobo Day.”

Settje and Wendell both said the 100th Hobo Day celebration should be something spectacular and making changes is the direction that the committee needs to go.

Wendell said with the 100th Hobo Day, SDSU hopes to revitalize older traditions that might have been lost over the years.

“The Hobo Day committee is trying to generate traditions that may have been forgotten about,” he said. “We want to make the week’s events bigger than they already are and make the experience more valuable than it already is.”