St.Paul’s School ,NH
St. Paul's School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school is one of only six remaining 100% residential boarding schools in the U.S. The 2,000-acre (8 km2) New Hampshire campus currently serves 533 students, who hail from all over the United States and the world.
St. Paul's is a member of the Independent School League, the oldest independent school athletic association in the United States.
St Paul's is home to many long-standing traditions. Near the start of the school year, the Rector announces a surprise holiday – Cricket Holiday – in morning Chapel. Classes are canceled for the day and the Rector leads new students and faculty on a tour of the woods surrounding the School. The tradition dates back to the first Rector, Henry Augustus Coit, who preferred cricket over baseball as a "more refined sport".
During February, the Missionary Society (the school's community service organization) plans and announces Mish Holiday. The holiday is announced the day before, the evening is given over to a theme dance, and the next day is a day off from school. The Missionary Society has used extravagant stunts to announce the holiday, including, in recent years, fireworks over the Lower School Pond and a plane trailing a "Happy Mish!" banner.
Students who participate in club sports (intramural) at St. Paul's are assigned to one of three teams for their time at St. Paul's—"Isthmian," "Delphian" or "Old Hundred". Students also are assigned to one of two "Boat Clubs""—"Halcyon" or "Shattuck". If a descendant of a graduate attends the school, she or he is assigned to the same clubs as her or his relative.
The annual Inter-House Inter-Club Race, known among students as the Dorm Run or now called The Charles B. Morgan Run, takes place late in Fall Term, usually in early to mid-November. Students are invited to earn points for their dorm and club by running in a 2-mile (3.2 km) cross country race. The current student record is 9:48, set in 2006 by Peter Harrison '07.
During a weekend in the Fall Term, the Student Council holds Fall Ball, a dinner/dance formal formerly called Cocktails. It used to be each dorm's prefects who would set their new students up with seniors of the opposite sex from other dorms. Now it is that each big sister/big brother is set up with another big sister/big brother of the opposite sex and their two "littles" go together.
During the Winter Term, the school holds the annual Fiske Cup Competition. Each participating dorm produces a student-directed and -performed play. Most plays are held in dorm common rooms.
In the Spring, the school holds a school-wide public speaking contest called the Hugh Camp Cup. The finalists' speeches are delivered before the entire school, and the student body votes on a winner, whose name is engraved on the prize. Alumnus John Kerry achieved this distinction during his sixth form year.
On the last night of the term, students gather in the Chapel at 9 p.m. for the Last Night service. At the Last Night service for Spring Term, the last night of school before summer vacation, the faculty lines up outside the Chapel after the service and students shake hands with every member as they exit. On the Sixth Formers' last night on campus, they gather as a class in the Old Chapel. At the conclusion of the service, the rest of the student body waits outside to congratulate them and say their goodbyes.
During Anniversary Weekend, held on the first weekend of June, alumni converge on the school for get-togethers, reunions, and the annual Alumni Parade. Each form (class) marches down Chapel Road in chronological order, starting with the oldest living alumni. In the back of this long column is the about-to-graduate Sixth Form.
St. Paul's students once had a close relationship with jam bands like the Grateful Dead. Some of the lingo peculiar to St. Paul's originated as the "Pyramid Dialect" among St. Paul's students and alumni who followed the Grateful Dead's 1978 shows in Egypt. Phish played in the Upper Dining Hall on May 19, 1990.