ALUMNI
A Tale of
22 Steps The senior stairs, one of Penn Charter’s most storied traditions
of time,” as one graduate, Allan Dash OPC ’57, said. But the tradition links all those who have earned the rank of PC senior and assumed its privileges. “One of my happiest, most vivid memories of PC school days,” Dash said, “was that September morning in 1956 when I walked proudly up my senior stairs for the first time.” Today, more than a half-century later, senior Mason Thomas remembers his first time on the stairs as “real special. I felt like I had finally made it.” The Upper School Student Handbook spells out the rules for the senior stairs. The stairs “are reserved solely for seniors; no other students may use them during the school day.” (Faculty, parents and other visitors may use the stairs anytime.) Although the school day is defined as 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., some underclassmen cautiously avoid the elegant staircase at all hours. “They’re nice to look at. I don’t think about them to walk on,” said sophomore James Frye, who uses one of the other, unsung stairways to
by Lea Sitton Stanley
J
ust inside the red double doors framing the main entrance to the William Penn Charter School is a broad, winding staircase known simply as “the senior stairs.” Challenges have been leveled and honor reclaimed in the name of these 22 lovely,
meticulously maintained wooden steps. And for as long as anyone can remember, they have telegraphed: You’ve arrived. The tradition of the senior stairs is woven tightly into the fabric of Penn Charter. How and why it all started may be “lost in the mists
Have a senior stairs story of your own?
Do tell.
Email your recollection to ssexton@penncharter.com. We will compile the stories into an online feature.
30
•
SPRING 2014
