Grandparents' Day, by Lynda Dawkins, former English teacher and Middle School Head

Presentations to prepare!  Skits to perfect!  School work given an extra touch!  Oh, the excitement leading up to a favorite day for the entire student body, Grandparents Day!  The love and pride felt on campus that day as grandparents and grandchildren shared music, food,  a tour of the campus  was palpable.  Grandparents Day began in 1981 and easily became a yearly tradition.  Signs saying “Welcome Grandparents,” “Grandparents are Great,” and “I love my Grandparents'' could be found around the campus; special music programs by students of all divisions were practiced and polished; dances were performed; food was served, classes often had a special program prepared and some individual classes asked grandparents to share their special memories of an historical  time being studied.  Finally classrooms were visited, and students had a chance to show Grandpa and Grandma some of their own work and introduce them to their teacher.  A glorious time was had by all!

The Berens

 



Gita Arab and her mother, who won the prize for traveling the longest
distance to attend Grandparents Day, coming all the way from India!



Parker Smitherman, 5th grade



The Rasberrys



The Ritchies

Alan Ramseyer and Grandpa Bob

Soap Scrimmages in the '70s, by Kevin Reed '77

Back in the early days of Upper School football under Coach Bill Carter, and before Booster Night traditions started, the Upper School football team would conduct a preseason scrimmage to help prepare the team for its upcoming season. Rather than charge regular admission to spectators, the price of admission was a bar of soap. The soap bars were collected and put in a large box, no doubt supplied by Love Box Company, and the box was then stored near the showers for the athletes to use throughout the year after practices and games. One less item for the School to pay for on an annual basis!

If you have a photo from one of the soap scrimmages, please share it with us!  In the meantime, please enjoy these football photos from the early '70s!  Do you remember the soap scrimmages?  Please take time to post a comment or memory from this or any of the traditions posted on this blog!



 

Dads' Day, by Kaye Myers, former Head of Early Childhood

In the fall of 1986, fathers of Early Childhood students received the first invitation to Dads’ Day.  For the next twenty-seven years dads have accompanied their children to school for a half day of great activities as students shaved their dads with shaving cream and popsicle sticks, made and flew paper airplanes, challenged dad to Giant Gym activities, etc. For many years Jack Shumard and his many reptiles made frequent appearances and almost everyone wanted to hold his eight foot boa constrictor. The parade of motor vehicles was always a big hit:  eighteen wheelers, patrol cars, fire trucks, concrete mixers and a variety of automobiles and motor cycles.  Each year dads or their surrogates are greeted by exciting adventures with their sons and daughters.

 

Check out these photos from Dads' Day throughout the years, and click on "Post a Comment" to share your own great memories from this event!

 

 

How About Those All-School Pep Rallies? by Chris Ashbrook, Upper School Head

All-School Pep Rallies are the perfect time to take a break from our rigorous curriculum and simply yell and scream support of the Spartans.  Our younger students get us all fired up with their love of the high school teams and their unbridled enthusiasm.  They start making noise which in turn makes the Middle School students make noise which then leads to the Upper School students making sure that they make the most noise.  It is always loud and lots of fun.  I know that the student athletes we are recognizing always feel supported and important.  What a thrill! We take the time to recognize athletic participants from preschool to our varsity teams and it is amazing to realize that nearly every student at the school is participating in something during any given season. 

The times where we come together as an entire school to celebrate are indeed precious.  The students thrive on one another’s positive energy and we are all proud to be a part of the Collegiate family.  Whether in the amphitheater, the football stadium, the gym, or the quad, all of our students can’t help but enjoy the opportunity to come together as one and celebrate. 

 

 

Overnight Trips

For many years, WCS students have enjoyed overnight trips.  Share your own memories of the following trips by clicking on COMMENTS at the end of this post!

Third Grade Trips by Belinda Mould, 3rd grade teacher

Each year the third grade goes on an end-of-the-year trip.  For the last 18 years, it has been to Oklahoma City.  We have gone on chartered buses, visited the Oklahoma Botanical Zoo, and stayed in the Oklahoma Science Museum.  This museum was ours for the night with a staff there just for our fun!  They blew up things for us, let us handle snakes just before bedtime, showed us an IMAX movie, ran "come and go" science centers of our choosing, opened their gift shop at night, presented a planetarium show, and let us sleep on the floor.  That's right sleep on the floor!  This last piece was not always a hit with the parents, and rumors passed from year to year so that parents were always looking for those coveted sleeping spots, sometimes way before the midnight bedtime.  That midnight bedtime was not always too popular with the parents either, but the kids loved it; and the trip was all about the kids.  Oh, I must mention the favorite kid spot . . . the treehouse.  This treehouse is impossible to explain, but it was huge and you could shoot rubber balls and other objects from the top level.  The next day, we returned to Wichita very tired, but with wonderful memories and "if" the parents were lucky, the kids slept all the way home.

This  past year the third graders went to Kansas City.  Oklahoma City had a scheduling problem so the third grade teachers decided to check out Science City Museum in K.C. We would be their first school to spend a weekday night at the museum.  The next day we would travel to the Deanna Rosa Farmland   Since we had been taking students to OKC for almost 20 years we weren't  sure this trip was going meet our expectations. The trip far exceeded  them.  We were blessed with beautiful weather; great, exciting classes; happy, well behaved kids; and  a lot of fun for everyone!  We look forward to KC next year!

 

 

Heigh Ho! Heigh Ho! It’s Off to Camp We Go!
The 4^th Grade Trip, by 4^th grade teacher Meghan Smith

The Fourth Grade campout has been a tradition for over 20 years in the Lower School! To end each school year, the fourth graders pack up and head to Rock Springs 4-H camp in Junction City, Kansas. This is the first overnight field trip with just teachers as chaperones.  It has been a time of endless laughter, practical jokes and activity-packed days. Students enjoy searching streams for crawfish, riding horses, shooting rifles, aiming arrows during archery and working together. It wouldn’t be a campout without Coach Funke’s traditional medallion hunt after dinner.  We end the day toasting s’mores around the campfire and watching hilarious skits made up from each cabin group.  It is a jam-packed 36 hours of memories in the making for fourth graders to carry with them throughout their Collegiate career and beyond.

 

5^th Grade Overnight Trips by Jessica Mallard, 5th grade math teacher

The destination of the first 5^th grade overnight trip was the Flint Hills, featuring an old-fashioned Wagon Train.  This unique trip included eating a genuine chuck wagon supper, breakfast cooked over an open fire, and sleeping under the stars! After several years, 5^th graders began staying at Embassy Suites Hotel in Kansas City, visiting museums like Steamboat Arabia and Union Station’s Science City. Students had fun swimming and going out to eat in a big group at Winstead’s (home of the famous and delectable cheeseburger and fries), seeing IMAX movies, and taking science enrichment classes. In recent years, the overnight trip has taken on a Medieval flavor as the students have spent the day at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival to prepare them to host the annual 5^th grade Medieval Faire fundraiser. In 2012, students were treated to a tour of the newly restored McPherson Opera House after spending a fun evening at Rock Springs making s’mores and doing teambuilding activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sixth Grade Trip to Hannibal, by Lynda Connell, former WCS faculty member

Near the end of September, beginning in the early ‘90s, sixth graders piled into two buses and traveled to Hannibal, Missouri.  The first novel read during the school year was Tom Sawyer, so the trip was designed to bring to life some of the events in the book, and to learn more about the author.  Parents, teachers, and students spent the night in the Holiday Inn.  The two-day trip was filled with visits to historic sites in Hannibal, including the Mark Twain boyhood home and museum, walking by the whitewashed fence, viewing the Mississippi River, and touring the cave which was an important site in the novel.  A highlight of the trip was an outdoor evening performance which dramatized scenes from Tom Sawyer, all familiar to the students.  Some years the weather was quite cold to sit outside for the show, but at the end of the year, the trip to Hannibal was always mentioned as one of the best memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7^th Grade Trips by Devon Rothwell ’71, WCS math teacher

This year the Seventh Grade Team is celebrating the 20^th year of our Baseball Unit and trip.  In 1993 we developed a baseball unit that culminated in a trip to Kansas City to see a Royals game.  After that first year, we started going to Dallas for an overnight trip that included a Rangers game.  Twice we went to St. Louis to see the Cardinals, but the majority of the trips have been to Dallas. Many students remember this trip and count it as a highlight of their Middle School experience.  While in Dallas they visit the 6^th Floor Kennedy Museum, tour the stadium, see the Holocaust Museum, and sometimes go to Medieval Times and visit the Oklahoma Memorial on the way down.  It is a wonderful trip that encompasses many of the topics they cover in their 7^th grade American History class.  In 1999 we changed the trip to be a two-night experience. To this day, 7^th grade is the only class that takes a two-night trip with the whole class. I bet if you think back you will remember many funny and moving things about this trip. 

Seventh grade students also have the option of going on a trip to Washington DC.  Dave Hawley takes this trip every year to highlight all he has taught the kids in American History.  It is an awesome trip and one most students never forget.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What about the 8th grade trip? 

We're saving that one for later, when it will be included in an article about the Heifer Project!

 

 

Share your fun memories of these trips by clicking on "Comments."