STUDENT PROFILE

“Would you care for a Pez?”

If you’ve heard this phrase around campus lately, chances are you’ve run into Mervin Feick III, better know as “Merv.”

Merv, a freshman English and Computer Science major, distributes 60-120 Pez a day.

“It started in my freshman year of high school,” Merv said. “My mom pointed out a Snoopy dispenser. I like Snoopy, but I’d never even heard of Pez before.

“So I started dispensing it every once and awhile and, well, people dug it. They were like, `Hey, thanks Merv, you made my day; that’s just what I needed.'”

Merv said that his habit of dispensing Pez grew throughout high school and by senior year he was known for it.

Merv currently has a collection of 32 Pez dispensers, including the original Snoopy, with 50 more soon arriving from a recent E-bay purchase. He had 90 different dispensers at one point, but his numbers dwindled last spring. “I gave out a Pez dispenser to every member of my senior class when we graduated,” he said. “It was giving them something that meant a great deal to me. And who knows? Maybe they all dispense Pez now.”

Merv said that he dispenses Pez because he likes to see people smile, and he thinks that it’s a small thing to do to make people smile.

Oddly enough, with all the Pez that Merv dispenses, he only eats the broken ones.

“I love it so much, but I figure that for every one I eat, that’s one less person that gets one,” Merv said.

His frequent distributing has actually been dubbed the Ministry of Pez by some friends he made while performing in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

He explained, “I took a regular amount with me, but something told me, `You need more’ so I had someone get me some refills. I ended up distributing over 1,200 Pez that week.”

Jacob Nelson, a recent acquaintance of Merv, said, “It’s good to know that people can commit such selfless acts. He just gives and gives and asks for nothing in return.

“He’s like Santa Claus without the milk and cookies,” Nelson added.

Merv hopes that his legend as a Pez dispenser will be passed on. “I hope that someday people buy Pez for their kids and say, `I knew this crazy son-of-a-goat that gave out Pez all the time,'” Merv said. “I would just love for people to go out and do something arbitrary like that to spread some goodness.”