Students raced their makeshift beds and carts Tuesday, Feb. 7 at the Today and Beyond Wellness Center’s 21st annual Sexually Responsible Bed Race. Student groups came together to make the fastest and most informative cart to race from the Breezeway to the Administration Building for prizes.

This year, the fastest time and best team spirit awards went to the Peer Education Team’s “Don’t Duck Your Responsibility.”

“It’s a really creative and fun event, and gets the students out and talking about being sexually responsible,” Courtney Weaver said, special health coordinator for Today and Beyond Wellness Health Center’s promotion department. “Hopefully they learn that it’s easier to wear condoms and to protect themselves if they want to be sexually active.”

Five teams raced in this year’s event — a drop from last year’s 14. Teams chose to decorate their bed/cart according to a theme. Winners of the four categories — fastest time, most creative, most educational and best team spirit — received a plaque with a slot in it for the team’s picture.

“Our theme is Twitter Bird,” Malinda Majava said, a sophomore elementary education major, was a part of the orientation leader’s team who won most educational. “We have a Trojan Owl with tweets on the side with facts and little sayings fighting STDs.”

Teams used their imaginations in making their carts. Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a music fraternity, who won most creative, put wheels on an actual mattress, and had their racer dress in drag and lie on the bed to promote their theme “Can’t Consent While Intoxicated.”

“It’s so funny,” freshman Tamera Saint Luis said. “The dude in the dress is hilarious.”

There were many other fun themes such as the Peer Education Team’s cart which had their racer dressed in a duck costume. Others, like Alpha Epsilon Pi’s “Wear a Condom” cart, were built for speed.

Samantha Coffin, a senior psychology and biology double major, was the team’s racer.

“We just had a lot of fun building the cart and painting it,” Coffin said. “We were aiming to build the fastest cart and just win the race.”

But the event wasn’t all about winning. With all the fun came a serious message for students about safe sex as Coffin stated:

“I hope they take away that protection is important and to always make sure to use a condom because the world doesn’t need a lot of other mini people out there.”