Well “the wild RUMPUS” came and went. Minus a few lost voices, some achy muscles after The Gauntlet and sheer exhaustion, RUMPUS was a huge success and loads of fun!
Our campus saw visits from elves, beautiful Greek goddesses, Tina Turner, The B52’s and Robin Hood. Food was abundant throughout the weekend with dishes such as chili, pizza, pig’s stomach with blueberry yogurt, blended turkey dinner and two sticks of butter with cayenne pepper. This was an educational weekend. Students learned that the campus of Darlington was formerly Desoto Park, Upper School Director Gordon Hight’s great-grandfather’s name and why polar bears do not eat penguins. Throughout the weekend there was teamwork, unity, sportsmanship, fun, smiles, accomplishment, hugs and laughs. Our community came together as faculty, day students and dorm students as we dressed up, performed and competed. This is what RUMPUS is all about!
This weekend would not be successful without the support of the faculty. Thank you to everyone who competed, ran a station at an event, designed a game, cheered, filmed or took pictures, and performed. It is great for students to see all of us in our “human” form and I think the snowball fight on the chapel lawn was a great ending to the weekend!
Thank you to all of the behind-the-scenes judges (you know who you are!) This was an especially tough year as every house brought their “A” game to the competition. I want to thank you all personally for being the eyes and ears of the competition and passing along your thoughts. A special thank you also to the Heads of House for bringing your houses together and making the competition tougher than it has ever been. The costumes, banners and themes were spectacular. Last but certainly not least, thank you to Norris Allen and Marcus Holmes for making sure we had sound, lights and facilities. Marcus was the blur on a bike around campus who made sure there was sound at each venue and stoked the fires for Fear Factor.
And finally, congratulations to Tim McCann and the Neville House boys for their win! Caroline Blaylock and the Regester House girls didn’t make things easy for Neville and should be proud of their stellar second place standing.
If you pass Zack Martin, Mark Huang, Max Grisham, Luke Cook, Keda Smith, Sierra Shamblin, Preston Cobb, Henderson Stegall, Eiken Hansen, Lindsay Braden, Lauren Renaud or Meredith Gaffney in the hall, please be sure to tell them what a good job they all did in pulling this weekend off. The Head Prefects and I start working on this in November. They have committed quite a bit of time and effort to help make RUMPUS successful. In addition they are learning what planning and leadership really entails. Please congratulate all of them for their efforts!
Great job and once again thank you for supporting RUMPUS weekend!
