MACON — Classes haven’t even begun, but freshmen at Mercer University have a memory to last a lifetime. Students and advisers from the first-year class set the world record Saturday for the largest game of tag. Pending review by the Guinness Book of World Records, the students should go into the next record book.
The previous record for the popular playground game was 465 people, set at an event organized by Marcia LeVatte of Sherwood Park in Canada. The new record, as of Saturday, is 481. The event took place Saturday night at the intramural courts in the University Center on Mercer’s Macon campus and was part of Bear Beginnings, Mercer’s orientation program for new students.
After an hour of tag, the final person not tagged “it” and, therefore, the winner, was Harriet Abbey, a freshman from Ghana.
In order for Saturday’s game to be an official record, the Bear Beginnings program will send in documentation in various forms, including video footage, photos, media coverage, notarized witness statements and the name of the winner.
About Mercer University
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University enrolls more than 8,000 students in 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies – on major campuses in Macon, Atlanta and Savannah and at three regional academic centers across the state. Mercer is affiliated with two teaching hospitals — Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah and the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, and has educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta. The University operates an academic press and a performing arts center in Macon and an engineering research center in Warner Robins. Mercer is the only private university in Georgia to field an NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu.
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