Members of the freshman class gathered on campus last Friday to celebrate their class fun day, the last class at St. Louis U. High to do so.

Though the date for freshman fun day was set at the beginning of the second semester, planning really only began in late April, about three weeks out from the event. The planning committee was headed by math teacher and freshman class moderator Stephen Deves, who was joined in planning by a volunteer group of teachers, including English teacher Michael Mohr, science teachers Megan Menne and Robyn Wellen, math teacher Julie Moeser, art teacher Sean Powers, and Admissions Coordinator Jennifer Thomas. The members of the committee were responsible for coordinating the itinerary for the day, as well as any logistics involved with setting up activities.

The day began with students arriving at school at 8:30 a.m.  For the day’s first activity, the freshmen gathered in the chapel for Mass, which was preceded by a speech from two senior advisors.  

Mass was followed by the freshman awards ceremony, which served as a replacement for the planned all-school awards ceremony on April 29, where attendance was limited to juniors and seniors after weather concerns moved the event indoors. One of the freshman award winners this year was John Posey, who won the Fr. Hagan Award, given to students who display, in addition to extracurricular involvement and academic excellence, a love for SLUH and an overall joy in attending school.

“I’m really happy to have won the award,” said Posey. “I am just very grateful.”

After the awards ceremony was concluded, freshmen embarked on the remainder of the day’s activities. At the beginning of the day, as students walked into the Danis Lobby and finished their VisitU surveys, they received a name tag denoting which group they were assigned to. Depending on their group number, freshmen were sent to one of the three activities to begin: bashball on the soccer field, a scavenger hunt in the main school building, and, perhaps most fun of all, a wide variety of inflatables on the football field.  

Of the day’s abundance of activities, students especially enjoyed the opportunity to play bashball, which, for many, was their first experience of the SLUH fixture due to social distancing guidelines, until recently, limiting close contact sports on campus.

“Bashball was really fun,” said freshman Noah Evers. “I had heard so much about it, but that was my first introduction to it. I would say it definitely lived up to expectations.”

Another aspect of freshman fun day that was met with enthusiasm were the inflatables set up on the football field. The inflatables, which varied shape and size from an obstacle course to a bounce house, were a huge hit, and gave students the ability to let out some energy after a stressful school year.

“I really liked the obstacle course,” said Evers. “I thought that was pretty fun. They also had a basketball inflatable and a soccer inflatable, and both of those were pretty fun.”

Students also took part in the scavenger hunt, which was organized by art teacher Sean Powers, and was directed towards encouraging freshmen to explore areas of the school which they may not have seen before.

“The scavenger hunt was so great,” said Deves. “Mr. Powers has such a deep knowledge for the school, so he was able to come up with some cool things where (freshmen) could find unique parts of the school they hadn’t known about before. They also had an app where they could scan a QR code and take a photo of themselves, so that was a good time.”

Said Posey, “Especially for freshmen, because we are still so new to the school, being pushed to find new places and to just explore was really fun.  I found a bunch of cool places (around the school) that I didn’t even know existed before.”

At the end of the day, Deves and his colleagues on the planning committee had one final trick up their sleeves, so to speak, as freshmen were treated to 45 minutes of magic. The idea to bring in a magician was hatched in a brainstorming session aimed at coming up with exciting activities, and, as planning progressed, the idea became a reality.

“One of the other things that came up in brainstorming that we thought was really cool as well, it was kind of like ‘Hey, let’s get a hypnotist or mentalist to perform,’” said Deves. “At first it seemed kind of big, but I looked into it, and there were some local people who could do it, so we ended up going for it.”

For freshman Drew Winkeler, the best part of the day was not only the magic show, but also having the opportunity to talk to the magician throughout the day.

“Of course there was the whole big magic show,” said Winkeler, “But (the magician) was also there for most of the day, doing tricks around some of the tables in the Commons. I really liked him. He was very fun and very good at what he does.”

Above all, though, Deves expressed a huge amount of gratitude for his fellow members of the planning committee.

“I’m just very grateful that there are colleagues of mine who care much about these students and who want to make sure they have a fun day. They put in so much work to benefit them. I’m just so lucky to work with such great people,” said Deves.