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THS grad leading charge for Earth Day mob photo

By Shawn Linenberger - | Apr 26, 2011

Zack Pistora wants to fit the whole world into a Kansas State University stadium — with the help of hundreds of fellow KSU students.

Pistora, a 2006 Tonganoxie High School graduate, is president of Students for Environmental Action at K-State.

The group originally planned for a mob photo this past Friday at Memorial Stadium in honor of Earth Day. The stadium is at Anderson and Denison avenues on the southwest corner of the KSU campus.

However, Mother Nature wasn’t agreeable and with the rainy weather, Pistora said the photos has been postponed to 1-1:30 p.m. this Friday, weather permitting.

Students have been asked to wear either purple or green shirts for the photo — the purple will represent continents and green the oceans as if it were a photo taken from space.

“We’ll rush people in purple and green shirts in and form Earth,” Pistora said. “It’s predesigned. We just have to fill in the people.”

He noted the stadium has green artificial turf, which will assist with forming the “ocean” areas, if needed.

“We can use the green to fill in if we need to, but I think we will be fine,” Pistora said.

The photo project was to be in conjunction with SEA’s Earth Day Festival and Trade Show on Earth Day at Bosco Plaza near the K-State Union. Roughly 20 Earth-friendly campus and community organizations were at the festival, Pistora said.

Now in his third year with SEA, Pistora said doing environmental activism and non-profit work with the club is what he appreciates most about the organization.

The club, which has about 30 students who regularly meet, has worked with K-State Facilities to encourage recycling at K-State football games by providing blue bins for aluminum and plastic containers to be recycled.

He said the group chats with fans at games in an effort to encourage recycling.

“The more you drink, the more you recycle,” Pistora said, joking about talking with fans about recycling. “That kind of mentality works pretty well.”

At home K-State football games, the group collects, on average, a ton of recyclable aluminum and plastic.

Pistora said SEA will be partnering with the facilities department again on Friday — they’ll use a cherry picker truck to take the K-State earth photo.

Pistora is majoring in political science with minors in women’s studies and nonprofit leadership and plans to graduate next month.

“It’s encouraging to have the younger students get excited and fired up and carry on the club after I’m done,” Pistora said.