The Penberthy Fields radiated with high spirits on March 22 as Texas A&M faculty and staff participated in a field day hosted by Living Well, A&M’s official employee wellness program. Living Well collaborated with Rec Sports, the Gardens, Brookshire Brothers, Wells Fargo and more to organize the event.

Thirty-six teams of 10 staff members each had the opportunity to immerse themselves in several games and test their athletic ability. Employee wellness manager of Living Well Kourtney Bassett said eight people per team had to participate in each game.

“They rotate in sixes,” Bassett said. “We have a hula knot just where they’re all grabbing a hand twisting out and they’re going to do a hula hoop. We have an egg and spoon race. We’re doing trashcan ball, we have a beanbag toss area, a relay race and then the puzzles as I mentioned before. Then our final challenge this year, we switched it up. Last year, we did a tug of war, and it got really competitive. Super fun, very competitive, and this year, the Mission Inflatables is coming out with the inflatable obstacle course.”

Liz Wood, faculty member of the oncology service at the veterinary teaching hospital, said field day gave her team ‘Saved by the Chemo Bell’ the chance to let loose, have fun and grow better bonds with one another.

“The teamwork together is great, cheering each other on, being silly with the music,” Wood said. “And then just the competitiveness and the friendly atmosphere going through, like we’re all digging at each other, but we all know we’re having fun with it.”

The field day was a big hit last year, which Bassett said motivated staff to work hard to make this year’s event even more memorable.

“We started planning almost immediately after last year’s event,” Bassett said. “So we met up, had a team meeting about wells and betters. What did we do well? What can we do better the next year? And then we started reaching out to partners on ‘Hey, what can we do to make this better? How do you want to be involved?’ And they’ve worked with every partner that I listed since then to make this event.”

Leslie Krueger, who works in Sponsored Research Services, said bonding with her team ‘SRS Play in the Grid’ was one of the most special aspects of field day. 

“It’s for team camaraderie,” Krueger said. “We’re together in the office all day, every day, so to be able to come out and be a part of something fun like this is great together.”

Wood said the field day helped foster further connections among her coworkers.

“With our group, especially, it’s led us to do more things together,” Wood said. “We were already kind of like a family, but now we do group events together. For example, the group’s going to be taking a trip to Iceland to do a half marathon, and they did this, and then it turned into that. And then getting to know people from around the college, we see people that we’ve done leadership camps with and things like that, and so it’s great to stand out here and participate together.”

Employees yelled, cheered and celebrated as they encouraged their teammates in each game. Living Well offered trophies throughout the day, but Bassett said she primarily wanted field day to provide them the opportunity to momentarily forget about nagging responsibilities.

“You see community in the making, and it also is an opportunity to just take you back to your childhood and you know, old school field day,” Bassett said. “Just come out, take some time away from work, enjoy the people that you’re with, come out with your offices. You see the excitement. It’s something that you don’t get in a lot of office spaces.”