Have you had a hug recently?

More than 750 people stood in line to hug Jordan Pearce, BYU freshman and Hinckley scholar, in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record of most hugs given to one person in an hour.

After 30 minutes of straight, fast hugging, Pearce ran out of people after hugging 765 different people beating the old record of 612 made in Finland.

The idea came about during a planning meeting for the LDS Edgemont North Stake activity.

Pearce said the purpose of the activity was to emphasis the idea in the youth of the church that they could do anything they set their minds to.

Charles Abbott, Pearce’s grandfather, came up with the idea of trying to break a world record. Having already completed the task in 1976 when he and his priest quorum flipped a 5 foot 3 inch pancake, he helped plan the logistics of the big event.

Pearce was chosen because she was the oldest of Abbott’s grandchildren and he felt that she “could handle all the hugging”. It seemed that she could, after handling every sort of person from sweet old ladies, to grouchy little kids. One such person was Matthew, Pearce’s four-year-old cousin, who kicked and screamed because he didn’t want a hug.

“It was so fun and funny with all the little hitches in the plan,” Pearce said. “Some old ladies would hold on forever when they just needed to get out of the way for the next person. Or I had to hug some BYU professors, which was weird because I would be taking their classes soon and now I was hugging them.”

In order for the attempt to be official, several steps had to be taken including having the press present and several witness and judges to be sure the hugs were valid. Utah District Judge Lynn Davis and State Senator Curt Bramble, each counted the hugs, which required arms and hands wrapped around the person.

Pearce has to wait for four to six weeks for the record-breaking attempt to be verified before she knows whether or not she has officially broken the record.

Now that she’s at BYU however, Pearce will be leaving her record-breaking antics behind, as she begins her studies this year as a nursing major.

Copyright Brigham Young University 12 Sep 2007