Perhaps the most revered aspect of college is the 'college experience'. It is supposed to be the best time of your life. A time when one learns who they are and discovers what they are capable of. It is the epoch when one shatters stereotypes and forms the friendships that will last a lifetime. Through trials and tribulations, good times and bad, successes and failures: it is where one grows into who they will become.

Laclede's LAN was my 'college experience'.

-Dudsmack (Project Lead, Founder)

I originally started Laclede's LAN with the idea of meeting new people, having fun playing games, and hoping to earn some extra cash to buy a new computer. However, Laclede's LAN turned out to be so much more than that. I've done things no one else has ever done. I've grilled 240 hamburgers and 160 hotdogs in a 1-hour period to feed over 200 hungry gamers. I've filled my car with 80 frozen pizzas to take to the LAN. I've manufactured and installed enough temporary power distribution equipment to reroute enough electricity for over 250 computers in excess of 1,000 amps. I've met many interesting people along the way as well as some dear friends. Aside from the friends I have made, perhaps the most significant thing I have gained from managing the logistics of Laclede's LAN is the experience and knowledge base that has led me to a successful career in facility management.

-Dickie (Logistics Manager, Founder)

Laclede's LAN was a chance for us to take our love of games and channel it into something that felt like a positive influence on the people around us. Gamers can be very reclusive, and gathering them together into an 'LL community' was more rewarding than I could have imagined. We stayed up for days, we ate horribly unhealthy food, we argued, worried, laughed, and worked our butts off. And I can say that I would do it again without hesitation.

-Lodsiek (Staff since Event Zero)

I got into LL because of my passion for video games. Not just for the simple act of playing the games themselves, but for the interactions that they allowed and provided. Everyone who attended an LL event was a part of the video game culture. There are those moments in a video game that make you go "WOW. What I just did/saw there was amazing!" And you remember those moments as fondly and vividly as any other memory. What makes playing video games so fantastic is that they allow you to immediately connect with someone who you've never met before and reflect on your shared experiences and memories of a certain game. Games connect us to each other. And Laclede's LAN served as our real-world hub where gamers from all over the country could come together and delight in reliving those shared memories, while at the same time providing an avenue where we could make new ones together. Not to mention all the time we spent together as staff preparing for and during the events. Pulling all-nighters making network cables until our fingers bled, testing out games for tournaments, begging sponsors to give us free stuff to give away, buying tons of food and racing to cook it in time to feed hundreds of people, mixing giant vats of pink lemonade, getting our pictures taken with the West County Fire Department after someone called in a fake fire, converting an old cheese factory into a space for a hurricane relief LAN and trying to get that horrible cheese smell out before the gamers started showing up.

I look back on those years and I smile.

-BraveSirRobin (Staff since Event Zero)

Computer gaming can be a real thrill by itself, but when combined with the fellowship and competition of friends in an enjoyable party atmosphere, you have something special. This was the feeling I had when I first met Dudsmack and Lodsiek, as we all played at a small LAN they organized. At this point, I knew I wanted to be involved to help nurture this gaming community; everyone there had fun, and I was sure we could bring that enjoyment to many more gamers. As time went on, I made more friends, learned new things constantly, and had a wonderful experience helping the LAN community grow. From hand-making ice cream cakes with Counter Strike logos for the tournament champions to sleepless weekends preparing servers, Laclede's LAN was a fantastic experience. The countless great people I got to spend so much time with made it a wonderful part of my life.

-ACE (Staff since LL6)

During highschool I was the outsider who never found a group that I belonged to until I started attending public lan parties. I would of never guessed that my attitude and creativity would get me any degree of "popularity" or "celebrity" with any group. For every person I knew at a lan party there were 5 that knew me, (thank you to whoever took that damn picture of me).

I joined the Laclede's LAN staff for one reason: when I know that I do something to make the party better, I enjoy it more. Those years where some of the best of my life and I can't imagine how different things would be today without LL.

-BEan (Staff since LL12)

LL. How the heck can you sum that up? It's too crazy, booze fueled, cable pulling, electric circuit panel exploding crazy to explain. Oh wait I just did.

And the Dickie burgers were excellent.

-SargentWolf (Staff Wildcard since LL7)

I found out about LL Through a few friends who had become staff members (Havicaz and Ace). From there I met the rest of the LL staff and became quick friends with all of them. Starting with LL7, and my first newly built computer, I was introduced to the world LAN parties. It was from there that I joined in on the following events, continuing my friendships with the staff members as well as making new friends attending the events. While I continue my friendships that have been made, I only now attend private lans hosted by the original staff.

-Revan