East Legends: The Evolution Of East Tradition’s Throughout The Years

Whether it’s 40-plus senior boys loudly chanting “BAÑO” in the language wing boys bathroom or a packed student section screaming at the Lancer Day football game, East’s traditions have been passed down through generations and some stuck in a decade — but all played a significant part in the high school experience.

The parade down Mission Rd, sporting floats decorated with both style and lancer pride, is just one of several traditions associated with Lancer Day — but it wasn’t always that way. 

The evolution of traditions at East spans back decades, so much so that it’s difficult to trace back to the first one. But that doesn’t mean that all of the traditions of past alumni have been lost to the sands of time. In fact, many East alumni still recall their own traditions from the years leading to their graduation.

East parent and 1989 East alum Peter Sowden experienced some of his own lancer traditions, but also heard rumors passed around of ones outside of his activities. The nontraditional rituals lead Sowden to believe that he and his classmates were part of a unique era of East tradition.

“Most of my friends or a lot of my very good friends played football,” Sowden said. “I played travel hockey, but that was not a school sport. Although, I did hear from older kids on the football team and outside of it about a farm ritual.”

The farm in question was the site of the freshman initiation ritual Sowden had heard about from classmates. Selected freshmen would be taken out to an unspecified farm by seniors to undergo an initiation process.

“An older classmate had a family farm and a few seniors would grab a group of like 10 guys to go out to the farm and swim in this horrible pond as initiation,” Sowden said. “It was all in good fun and nobody was ever forced to do anything they didn’t want to, it was just something we had as one of our own traditions.”

The past also included traditions that didn’t leave students soaking wet in pond water. Shannon McKee, 1990 East alum and mother of three East students, experienced the prom server and cheerleader breakfast traditions.

McKee fondly remembers trying out for prom server. The job — which you had to “audition” in front of a panel of judges, typically seniors, — for entailed managing, upkeep and serving hors d’oeuvres at prom, which was was held at the school rather than Union Station like it has been for the last few years.

“It was so much fun, but it was also embarrassing, people would make you do silly things instead of actually giving good reasons why you should be a prom server,” McKee said. “They’d make you bark like a dog sometimes, it really had nothing to do with talent at all. It was still fun though, and sort of a privilege to be able to be chosen as a prom server.”

McKee also recounts a cheer team tradition — one that still continues 31 years later.

“I was also part of the East girl’s cheerleading team and I remember if you made the squad, the girls would kidnap you in the morning and take you to breakfast to tell you,” McKee said. “It was so exciting when I got help with the process once I was on varsity and saw how happy it made them after finally breaking the news to them.”

While there are old East traditions clearly remembered by students of the past, there are also East alumni still close with the school who attended at times where new traditions were less common. 2003 East alum and debate teacher Trey Witt has a much different reflection on his time in high school.

“I was heavily involved with the debate and forensics teams while I was at East, but I never personally experienced anything tradition other than Lancer Day or pep assemblies,” Witt said. “I did hear a little bit about secretive thespian initiations, but I never did that myself or heard specific details.”

Witt also feels as though tradition-oriented activities have started to peter off as time went on after he graduated and eventually came back to teach.

“From what I’ve heard and seen, a lot of things like that have kind of begun to fizzle,” Witt said. “I don’t know, whatever it is, I have definitely noticed it’s all a bit less than it used to be in terms of how many traditions I’ve seen now.”

Despite Witt’s response, running through the evidence to see that every generation and the students that were part of them brought along their own unique traditions. Some may have only been practiced by the classes of that decade, while others are still being used in school to this day. The one thing that hasn’t changed, however, is that students of any era have continued to come up with new ways to cement their classes in the history of East tradition.