The True Measure of Spirit Week

 

 

By Katy Goodrich Smith ’99 – Class of 2027 Dean

 

November 2025

 

Measurements and numbers. So much of Spirit Week plays out in measurements and numbers…

 

• The Ranger Hall ceiling is 8 feet, 6 inches. Yep, our 8 ft. luan building will fit in our hallway!

• We’re going to need 4 more 12-foot carpet tubes, cut to 7 feet, for our giant palm trees for the “Rio” rainforest.

• Sound Booth, can you play a 6-second clip of “Birds of A Feather” after Line 17 in the skit?

• Mr. Roberts, do you have a 1” conduit and 1” pipe bender?

• The trailer is 20’ long. Pockets are 3.5”x1.5”.

• Thanks, Mr. Chatterley! I know that’s your 9th trip up the elevator to the 3rd floor of Morse for more paint, but we need more!

• Take 4 more steps to the front of the stage, so the audience can hear you!

• Hey! Can you pass me 2 more rolls of blue streamers? We need them for the beach scene! 

• Juniors! It’s almost 7:00pm! Just 23 minutes to go on the hallway! GO, GO, GO!

 

…and so on. As Class of 2027 dean, these numbers swirl through my head throughout Spirit Week, but they’re so much more than just numbers. These numbers are the careful planning, hard work, and intense effort of so many students and teachers to, say, turn the first floor of Ranger Hall into the rainforest and streets and beaches of Rio, or Severance Hall into the NYC sewer. These numbers make Spirit Week come alive.

 

…But even more, the real measure of Spirit Week is not a number to me. It’s a feeling.

 

It is a hasty pencil sketch on torn-out notebook paper of a bird surrounded by palm trees that somehow becomes that miraculous giant blue bird that soars down Main Street atop our junior float (…that “somehow” is Tillie Lange!). 

 

 

It is the reliable panic of Spirit-Week-Wednesday: how are we going to pull this off? There’s no way we have time to get all this done. And then, kids show up, advisors show up, and it happens.

 

It is Leo DeLucia saying 10 beautiful words to me: “Ms. Smith, I have a mannequin. I’ll get it now.” And so, our Carnival scene is complete.

 

It is Class Council leaders, weeks ahead of time, planning and sketching and scheming: how can we get people there? How can we win this thing? 

 

It is Mr. Roberts answering endless questions and delivering supplies of every kind, Mr. Reed and Mr. Shea calmly setting up the float in the rush of those last moments, and Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Bailey, bringing their young daughters to help late night with the hallway. It is so many other advisors, present with tools, supplies, skills, and encouragement (and candy).  

 

It is some of our new dorm students showing up after school to laugh and listen to music and paint windows on repurposed fruit boxes to make into buildings.

 

It is the Bugaloo stuck in my head as I weave between pirates and parrots and players and pizzas in the hallway on my way to class. 

 

It is the bubble of laughter when I pass a colleague’s classroom and see them teaching, quite seriously, with their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume on.

 

It is Mr. Urie, in his cameo in the junior skit, willing to flap his arms full of school ID cards and deliver this ending line: “Students, faculty, the moral of the story is that having your ID can save the day. Not just to open doors, but to open our hearts to the importance of school spirit.”  

 

It is the buzz of the saw and the smell of wood, paint, and glue in Stagecraft as our bird and boxes and buildings and beaches take shape.

 

 

It is Mr. Ryan. 

 

It is the hum of energy in Fuller Hall for Pep Chapel, every seat taken, and the rise of everyone there, on our feet for our football and cheer teams, for Mr. Keffer, for our thespians and K-Pop dancers.

 

It is hopping on a friend’s shoulders to hang garlands from the ceiling. 

 

It is a hallway packed with juniors and feathers and streamers and fun.

 

It is sneaking a look at the other hallways ahead of time.

 

It is Audrey Roy and Grace Cashin and all that blue paint, and Meara Garnes rush-drying our bird head with a hair dryer because the parade is in an hour and half. 

 

It is Kathryn Zajko lying sideways on the floor to hang crepe paper with extreme precision, Grant Tucker in a blue macaw costume for skit dress rehearsal that he’s still wearing 5 hours later to decorate the hallway, Toby Gilbert, pencil behind his ear, setting float supports in place, and it is the brainstorming brilliance and gentle guidance of Zeze Davis and Zelda Brent. It is Connor Surat, Gunnar Ward, and David Evans hauling plywood buildings across campus and drilling custom clothesline holes, Una McKinnon always positive and smiling and showing up for everything, and it is Ayla Brown staying behind after the parade to help clean up the float.

 

 

It is rushing from hallway to skit to float to Pep Chapel to parade to pizza party to the game to be part of it all.

 

It is the swell of the seniors as their pirate ship float crests the hill, and they roar and charge ahead with their foam swords to fall in line and march in their last parade.

 

It is 9th graders, experiencing this magic for the first time. 

 

It is glitter left behind, paint on your clothes, linking arms with classmates and singing at the top of your lungs behind the parade float.

 

It is that breath you take before you walk on stage to perform your skit or take the field. 

 

It is two towns, bundled and gathered under the lights, cheering their hearts out for their players and team.  

 

It is the weight of my Senior Year scrapbook in my lap, flipping through the ‘99 Spirit Week section and thinking how my hands, my friends, my classmates decorated the very same hallways as our students do today. 

 

 

It is switching off lights and leaving Ranger, after my juniors have just stayed late to finish the hallway, and campus is quiet for now but holding the energy for tomorrow, Friday. It is the slight catch in my throat and heart as I walk outside and see the proud, green glow of the Colby bell tower. 

 

SJA Spirit Week is all of this: excitement, energy, planning, laughter, stress, hard work, creativity, panic, ingenuity, problem-solving, exhaustion, team-building, nostalgia, lots of heavy lifting, marvel, competition, tradition, friendship, care, and happiness. 

 

It is our Spirit Week, one that begins with numbers and ends in feeling, in deep, strong, full measures of community and connection. I am so grateful to be part of this special place, then and now.

 

Go SJA!