With the 2017 semester coming to an end, the Providence Day School community will be losing the most iconic building on campus, the West Wing. However, the legacy of cardboard box will live on in the countless memories created over the years.
Starting second semester, the new academic building will be opened to the Providence Day community, and the West Wing will become a thing of the past. Despite being a memorable building for the current middle school students, upper school students, and faculty, future generations of PDS students will only be able to experience the building through the countless stories the West Wing has given life to.
Tales of the West Wing
By Lizzie Madison
The West Wing’s colorful history dates back before the current building existed; It was known as the Relocatables, a series of open-hallway classrooms that were located beside the Ridenhour Gym. These freestanding structures were difficult to maintain, but they produced a wide range of stories that laid a solid foundation for the current building. For example, one of the Relos, as the Relocatables were called, actually caught on fire.
Students and faculty agree the West Wing possesses the most personality out of all the other buildings on the PDS campus. Mary Elizabeth Coley, middle school English teacher, comments, "The West Wing seems to merit a place where people can relax and focus on learning and be comfortable. It's also a little quirky." The reason the West Wing’s atmosphere remains unique is because each classroom has its own personality. The hallway itself is a 90-yard timeline created by students and faculty.
Creation of the Timeline
The timeline creation began when Roy Garrison, current AP World and Euro teacher, realized how linear the West Wing was and decided a timeline would be a perfect thing to add to the cardboard walls. He wanted to show the five different time periods he was currently teaching, so he assigned his classes the task of finding images of specific periods. As a result, “when you look up there you will see [the] names of people who graduated seven, eight, and nine years ago.” This remained an important part of the timeline for Mr. Garrison because, to him, it was a way for earlier students to leave a mark on PDS.
Initally, Mr. Garrison hoped to have other departments contribute, but due to the fact he planned this during the same time as the re certification for the school, a majority of the teachers were too busy. He ended up receiving help from two female students who came up with the idea for the words "Future" and "Past"that hang above the doorway facing the Ridenhour. They purposefully crafted and placed the words so “the future [was] harder to see, and the past [was] a little bit fuzzy but a little bit clearer.”
"The future [was] harder to see, and the past [was] a little bit fuzzy but a little bit clearer."
Mr. Hedinger was approached by Matthew Lumino, a senior from the class of 2008, and was asked for his assistance in the senior prank. At first Mr.Hedinger was surprised due to the fact usually seniors would not announce their plans, but Lumino explained to him that he wanted to “fill the whole West Wing with balloons, streamers, post-it notes, anything that would fill space” and needed his help to get into the building. One evening around 8, with the assistance of a generator, Mr. Hedinger watched a group of seniors successfully fill the entire West Wing. The next morning, students and teachers “had to endure literally pulling things away and to the side to rip into [the] classrooms [and the] popping of balloons; the remnants were phenomenal.” In the end, “every senior came back and helped with cleaning so the facilities crew wasn’t obligated to it.”
From unplanned club meetings to enduring the tundra-like conditions of the cardboard box, the West Wing has left students and faculty with many unforgettable stories. For example, the Class of 2008 managed to pull off what was, in Eric Hedinger’s opinion, the most memorable senior prank.
While the West Wing will no longer physically exist on the PDS campus, it will live on in the memories of the community. The new academic building may mark the final chapter for the West Wing, but it also marks the beginning of a new book waiting to be filled with new experiences and memories.
To conclude, an optional anonymous survey was sent out to the current 2018 seniors and faculty asking for any memories they would like to share. These are a few of the stories they wanted to tell.
-”There is nothing that screams 'education' quite like fist holes through paper walls. Or the monarchy of cockroaches creating colonies in the walls. Gotta love the west wing though!!"
-”Lunch in West Wing - students know that they can come into West Wing to work on.” homework, have impromptu club meetings, work on homecoming projects, strategics on how to dominate at an academic world future problem competition while also completing a National History Day performance. And there are always really good snacks around the West Wing!”
-”One time when it was really rainy, the window in my AP World classroom had a leak. For the entire rest of the class, we pretty much just tried to stop the leak and prevent the water from getting all over everything.”
-”I remember the fateful day when I happened to walk inside that mysterious white building. The cardboard walls, the obscure time line running along the ceiling, getting less accurate as the years went on and jokes were added, the bugs, the cat living underneath, and all of the ghosts of students past haunted me. Never again. Never again. Freedom at last......”
-”During hurricane drills, we would have to walk outside into a safer building, obviously that makes sense, but I always found that funny anyways.”
-”Mr. Spence's strong inclination to try to run straight through the walls of the West Wing.”
-”I remember when Señor Talone swung the door open in his classroom because his hands were full and the door handle punched a hole in the wall.”
COMMUNITY
FUTURE and PAST Image courtesy of L. Madison
Katherine Currier's English Class Image courtesy of L. Madison
West Wing Time line Image courtesy of L. Madison
West Wing clean up Image courtesy of Eric Hedinger and Katie Metzger
Over the years, Mr. Garrison has been interested in seeing “how some students have brought in and some haven’t in regards to some of the images.” Ranging from mathematicians and scientist brought in by Barbara Marrow, former Science teacher, to more nonsensical items, like an image of the number seven.
After the initial timeline was completed, Mr. Garrison noticed some of the images had begun to disappear, and he suspected there was secret censorship occurring. Some were taken down due to spelling errors caught by Dr. Crumley, but others seemed to have just vanished without a clear reason as to why.
The Charger, December 2017
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West Wing image courtesy of L. Madison