An exciting start to a year of senior milestones, the Class of 2024 spent the final two weeks of August painting the field house. Amid the stress of pre-season, college applications, and the end of summer, seniors flocked to the building to ensure the success of this tradition.
The building itself is a token of Radnor history; the memory of previous senior classes is preserved within the layers of paint that coat each exterior wall. Inside, student names, some belonging to individuals who graduated decades ago, cover every inch of the ceiling and walls. During the final days of painting, the Class of 2024 added their own names to this piece of living history.
This year, the seniors chose Subway Surfers and other digital games as their theme – an ode to the online apps that cheerfully consumed their childhoods. Cleverly titled “Senior Surfers,” the house shows characters and icons from multiple games inside the windows of a subway train. “Nostalgia is such a large part of senior year,” noted Zoe Margolies, the Senior Class Treasurer. “We hoped to encapsulate these feelings of bittersweet excitement in the field house.”
Planning for the field house began in June of 2023. Members of the senior student council met virtually to discuss theme and design ideas. Once the theme was selected and announced to the class, the student council recruited talented senior artists to sketch the initial concepts. These students, primarily Diana Huang and Julia Salinero, graciously returned in the coming weeks to realize their ideas.
This year’s field house also boasts the first ever interactive feature: every time a senior tradition is completed, that box is checked off the wall of milestones. The practice builds anticipation for the event and continues the creativity of the building. Not only the first senior event, the field house set the tone for all events to come.
Despite a minor bee infestation within the walls of the building, the painting process went very smoothly. From 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day, seniors dropped their busy summer schedules and picked up paint brushes. Mrs. Greenawalt and Mr. Funk, the teacher sponsors, along with parent volunteers, kindly offered their time to supervise and facilitate the process. One day, at around 6:45 p.m., select students brought extension cords and projectors to complete the more intricate designs. “It was such a success,” Zoe commented. “We were all definitely worried about the time restraints, but the Class of 2024 pulled through as always!”
