On Friday, May 26th, the Burroughs student body divided into four teams for a chef-themed Field Day. The students were either placed on Team Martha Stewart (Blue), Team Guy Fieri (Yellow), Team Gordon Ramsey (Pink), and Team Chef Boyardee (Green).  The events of the day represented the first major actions of the new Congress, the official end to classes in the 2016-2017 school year and a much needed break before exams.

Field Day took weeks to plan and choreograph. Student Body President Brown-El said that, “The night I got elected I got to work determining what should be kept and what should be ax’d….In Congress, we went through each slot and determined what we wanted to do. A lot of events were pretty popular so we didn’t want to touch that.” Additionally, Brown-El explained the choice behind the theme, “We brainstormed a ton ourselves in congress meetings and sent the class officers out to get feelers from the student body about ideas. We had quite a few good ideas that I would’ve liked to see, but ultimately, we determined that chefs was the best move.”

The day started in the auditorium 8:45 am. After the usual announcements, the field day video was played and the students got hyped up. Six students, one from every grade, were then brought up to the stage, to begin the first part of the relay race. Sitting down side-by-side, the students were challenged to create an edible masterpiece out of cheese, bologna, crackers, chips, kool-aid, a banana, whipped cream, and a pack of sour patch kids. With Ms. Grantham and Mr. Wu judging the “cook-off,” the chefs had 3 minutes to make their food. As a surprise to even the contestants, Brown-El revealed midway through the cook-off that the contestants would have to eat their plates. Brown-El said, “We wanted to leave a bit of our own unique stamp on the opening ceremony events so naturally, a cooking show would be perfect to go along with our chefs theme.”

The winners of the cook-off from the seventh and tenth grades received a five-second head start in their first race. The relay commenced, and the chefs ate their plates before tagging the students who dressed up as chefs and spun around on a bat. From there, they ran to tag the next racers, four people participating in a 100-yard five-legged race. At the end of that, two students traded off giving each other piggyback rides down the straightaway before another student scootered around the bend of the track. For the penultimate leg, a student had to balance an egg on a spoon and walk 100 yards without dropping it. The final section of the race consisted of a slip n’ slide to victory. For the underclassmen race, the freshman class beat out the middle schoolers. In the upperclass division, the seniors upheld their tradition of winning in a great start to the day.

One of the cook-off contestants and relay racers, freshman Sam Treat, when asked about the relay, replied, “Well the food was among the grossest things I’ve ever tasted, and it will be a long time before I will ever be able to eat a banana without gagging. When I was eating, I was just hoping not to throw up. Then during the race I ran along side my grade, cheering them on. It was great to see the whole grade come together to cheer everyone on. I felt very lucky to be a part of the whole day….As my first field day, it was really awesome to compete against my friends.”

Once the relay races ended, everyone went to their respective activities, including Capture the Rolling Pin, Ultimate Frisbee, Dodgeball, Sponge Cake Ball, and many more. Finally, the student body regrouped at the Football Field and Stadium to watch the Dance Squad give the year’s last performance and to take part in the notorious Tug of War. In the all-school Tug of War, each grade was beaten by the grade above them with the seniors taking the ultimate win. Senior Katie Jackson said, “I love tug of war, and it was so satisfying to win.”

After the Tug of War was over, the student body headed to the auditorium for the annual yearbook assembly. The first yearbook was given to Mr. Abbott before presenting the edition to Ms. Bava, who will be the new sponsor of the yearbook club, and Ms. Bahe, the current sponsor. Students gave speeches commemorating retiring faculty members, including Judy Grand, Steve Wilcutt, Anne Rossi, Macon Finley, and Howard Jones. Finally, the yearbook club passed out the yearbooks to the student body. The day concluded with an all-school lunch in the quad.