By EMILY SPARACINO / Staff Writer

MONTEVALLO – The University of Montevallo’s Centennial College Night culminated in a third-consecutive Gold Victory on Feb. 9.

SGA President Tori Irvin Cranford revealed the results of this year’s competition between the Purple Side and Gold Side by ending her speech with “You couldn’t have picked a better place,” the secret phrase chosen from the script of the Gold Victory 2019 production, “Made in Mayfield or The Milk Man Cometh.”

“I don’t even know what I’m feeling … just a wave of beautiful emotions,” Gold Leader Catherine Renda said amid the celebratory chaos that ensued onstage among jubilant Golds after the announcement. “I’m so elated. I just love this game so much.”

Renda said it was an honor to lead the Gold Side with Ryan Howard to another victory, especially during College Night’s centennial celebration, an historic occasion that drew hundreds of alumni to Montevallo last week for a special parade, receptions, reunions and the dramatic duel that unfolded between Purples and Golds in separate theatrical performances on the stage of Palmer Auditorium on Saturday night.

Purple Side leaders were Mackenzie Haugh and Tyon Hudson, and the Purple Victory 2019 production was “Murder En Plastique.”

“On Such a Night as This,” an original composition by Stephen Elkins, ’08, with lyrics by Barbara Sloan, ’72, and Elkins, was performed by the College Night Centennial Revue Cast and conducted by Dr. Patrick Evans, ’88, with piano accompaniment by Dr. Laurie Middaugh, ’88.

College Night, UM’s long-standing homecoming tradition, generates a high level of excitement among students and alumni every year. Against the backdrop of its 100^th anniversary, College Night 2019 perhaps surpassed the standard wattage, delivering an electric atmosphere best described in an excerpt from The Alabamian in February 1931: “What is College Night? If you have never lived through one –– never cried, laughed and sweated through one –– know this: It is the crest of the wave of college spirit; it is the peak of attainment in every activity on campus; it is the high spot that will stand out in your mind as meaning ‘college,’ when all the rest has faded.”

Fittingly, Crest of the Wave was the theme of UM’s Homecoming 2019.