News of Osama Bin Laden's death kept students out late at two Missouri campuses.

The largest celebration took place at the University of Missouri-Columbia's Greektown, where reports suggest 1,000 or more students gathered for a spontaneous street party shortly after the news was announced Sunday evening.

Among those who showed up for party was Kristen Wright, a sophomore from Columbia, who heard about it through the Facebook social networking site. Wright said she arrived to find a section of Richmond Avenue blocked off by police cars. Along the street, students were wrapping themselves in American flags, dancing with sparklers, spraying each other with champagne and flinging industrial-size rolls of toilet paper everywhere.

She and her boyfriend stayed long enough to join in the group's singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, before leaving the still-going-strong party around 1 am.

"It's still a mess," Wright said. "We drove down there this morning. There was toilet paper everywhere."

Webster University celebrated in a more subdued, though no less patriotic, manner.

It was around 1 a.m. that Tyler Holman, a senior from Jackson, was wrapping up a study session at the library when he was struck by an idea.

Using social networking, texting and phones, Holman quickly pulled together a group of a dozen other night owls to get a head start on what's become a campus tradition in recent years.

Several years ago, the College Republicans purchased 3,000 small U.S. flags for an annual tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. September came early this year.

The group spent about two and a half hours planting the flags on and around campus.

"Then we all went back to studying," said Holman, who had a final exam in comparative politics on Monday morning.