The company hired to press and print the seniors’ spirit shirts was unable to deliver as promised.
The administration has tasked the senior class with resolving the problem, and if need be, Head of School Mrs. Jan Pullen will step in to help. It is unknown as to whether or not students will receive refunds. Seniors should expect the shirts to be delivered in the next couple weeks.
Over the last few months, the graduating Class of 2013 planned to uphold the tradition of class shirts and embarked on a quest to get the shirt designed, but ran into a conflict of interest that drastically slowed down production and split the senior class into schisms.
“It has become a trend here at Saint Stephen’s, starting in 2007, that classes would make their own spirit shirts for spirit week,” said Upper School Director Dr. Randy Watts.
Spirit shirts are paid for by the senior class with no funding from the school. They are usually adorned with flashy colors, the graduating year in big, bold letters and have the names of each senior listed on the back. Watts said the beauty behind creating a custom spirit shirt was that it is “a more spirited representation of the class.”
The first step this year’s seniors took in designing the spirit shirt was creating a Facebook page exclusively for seniors where they could all voice their feedback on how the shirts should look. The class proclaimed spirit shirt designer — senior J.R. Houston — would consider his design, then make the decision based on popular vote.
Houston said the original design for the spirit shirt was big letters and bright colors on a black shirt. But after he posted the design to the Facebook group, he said “people started to tweak it a bit.”
Houston said there were too many cooks in the kitchen when it came to making a final decision about the shirts. “The class was turning against each other, not in any serious way, but I knew if the arguing lasted any longer we would be the first senior class in years to not have a [custom] spirit shirt.”
“Everyone has their own opinions, and some people felt more strongly about it than others. At the rate the processes was moving I knew we might never get the [spirit] shirts,” he said.
Houston fixed this issue by “taking a few of the seniors who have been the most help to me regarding the spirit shirt and sat down created a design which we thought, was a balanced medium of everyones opinions.”
Finally, with a design ready, Houston and senior class President Gabrielle Woodruff met with Watts to discuss the spirit shirt.
“I thought the design was great; it really documents the creativity of this class,” Watts said.