This event has since been cancelled due to weather.

Oscar Sunday has arrived. Tonight, all the stars of Hollywood royalty will converge onto the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles as millions of people from across the nation converge onto couches in front of their televisions and watch the spectacle unfold for about four hours.

Students at Missouri Southern will also be participating in this yearly tradition, as they begin to gather in the first floor of the Spiva Library around 6 p.m. for the Seventh Annual “Road to the Oscars” party. According to Amber Carr, public services librarian and organizer of the event, students will be able to watch both the awards ceremony and the Red Carpet Show that precedes it, as well as enjoy free refreshments, play Oscar bingo and Oscar trivia, and even fill out their own Oscar ballots. Whoever has the most correct guesses on their Oscar ballot will win the Library’s grand prize of the evening — and no, it is not an Oscar.

“Usually what we try to do for our grand prize is have a film that’s up for best picture that is maybe already out on DVD as the grand prize along with some other little goodies,” said Carr. “I think one year, we had one student who was one guess away from a perfect ballot, but this student had seen everything including the shorts. They had done their homework.”

All students, faculty and even community members are invited to attend the Oscars party. Those who wish to reserve seating can call ahead of time, but as Carr stresses, it is not required.

“There’s no requirement. People can come come and go as they please,” said Carr. “We have some students that are here studying, smell the popcorn from somewhere, come down and grab some popcorn, watch for a little bit, then go back to studying. Then we have some people who come for the entire time.”

According to Carr, the Spiva Library originally began the “Road to the Oscars” party seven years ago after a conversation between her and fellow movie enthusiast Wendy McGrane, director of the Spiva Library, sparked the idea.

“Our library director, Wendy McGrane, and I both enjoy movies and she said ‘Hey, why don’t we try throwing an Oscars party?’ so I was all for it,” said Carr. “We did it, we had a good turn out, and we’ve just continued doing it every year since.

“[It is] just something to reach out to the students, have them come into the library, and either be more familiar with the library or just come into the library and see it in a different light.”

In addition to the Oscars party, every year after the Academy Awards the Spiva Library also orders all of the award winning movies and adds them to its feature film collection for students and faculty members to check-out.

“We started with AFI top 100 films, and we’ve added to that base collection every year with oscar nominated and award-winning films,” said Carr. “It’s a really good collection.”

For more information regarding the “Road to the Oscars” party, or to reserve seating for the event, contact Carr at (417) 625-9335.