Photos by Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech senior Dan Knisley and his girlfriend, junior Shelley Casey, chat during preparations for Midwinters 2009 in the Squires Student Center. The dance will take place for students and faculty from 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday.

Virginia Tech sophmore Mike Howhenstein (left) and junior Joey O'Toole build clowns for the German Club's carnival-themed Midwinters 2009.

BLACKSBURG -- From 7 a.m. to midnight every day since Sunday, members of the fraternal organization the German Club at Virginia Tech eat, sleep, live and breathe in the Commonwealth Ballroom at Squires Student Center. The long days have been spent creating decorations to cover the entire room, transforming the once bare walls into great works of art, as well as selling tickets and other preparations for the annual Midwinters event.

The German Club will be hosting Midwinters 2009, an evening filled with dancing for students and faculty from 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday.

The theme for this year's extravaganza is "A Night At The Carnival." Attendees can expect to see wooden masterpieces such as a 15-foot-tall Ferris wheel, mock carnival booths and even a boardwalk.

"The dance is great for the members of the German Club because the amount of hours spent decorating really provides a great opportunity to not only spend time with each other, but is a wonderful way to give back to the university," explained Michael Jabs, the club's president. "It is always rewarding to see the early mornings and late nights turn into a successful event on Saturday night."

Last year, about 1,100 people attended the dance, Jabs said. This year's goal is about 1,200, he said.

The German Club, an all-male organization originally known as the Cadet Dancing Club, was founded in 1887 to provide dances for students of the one-time Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.

"The service component of the German Club was to provide entertainment for the cadets," said Wayne Campbell, president of the German Club Alumni Foundation. "German dances were always performed, and over the years people just started calling the dances 'the Germans,' which is how our name evolved to the German Club."

The word "German" is now an acronym for how fraternity members should live their lives: gentleman, earnestness, reputation and responsibility, manhood, aim and name.

The German Club and another organization, the Cotillion Club, used to be friendly competitors in hosting dances. Both organizations had dances on the same weekends. If a student did not like the band at one of the dances, he or she would search to swap tickets with a student on their way over to the other one.

"There used to be three sets of dances per year," Campbell said. "They were two-night events, with Friday being semiformal attire and Saturday was formal -- complete with tuxedos for the gentlemen and evening gowns for the ladies."

Both clubs served as what is now called the Virginia Tech Union. They also brought in acts such as Ray Charles, James Brown and The Kingston Trio for the university's Corps of Cadets.

"The music of these acts used to be broadcast on the local radio stations throughout the South on Saturday nights," Campbell said.

Over time and with the university opening the campus in the 1970s to fraternities and sororities, these already established organizations evolved as well. The Cotillion Club accepted an offer to become affiliated with national fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha, but the German Club and its alumni decided to remain an independent organization.

The popularity of formal dances began to decline throughout the years, and the German Club decided to go from hosting three public dances each year to one: Midwinters every February.

Now the universitywide event is hosted annually on a Saturday night, while members of the German Club and alumni host a private dinner on Friday during which the group comes together and enjoys the decorations before working the event the next evening.

"The German Club men are held to the standard of being excellent hosts and maintaining a very positive atmosphere during the dance for the university," Campbell said.

The entertainment has not changed over the years, and there is still a live band for every Midwinters. For this year's event, The Dickens, specializing in party songs from the '70s, '80s and '90s, is providing the music.

"It is a very special event," Campbell said. "Just to measure this emotional meaning, there is no way as a student and member of the German Club that I would have missed Friday or Saturday dances, short of serious illness or death in the family."

Tickets are $5 and can be purchased from any member of the German Club, the UUSA Ticket Office in Squires Student Center or at the door.

On the Net: midwinters.com