Coyote Day History Dates Back to 2000

Coyote Day is one of the oldest GWCS traditions.  Its roots?  On may 4^th, 2000, the sophomore class pooled together and bought a statue of a coyote.  That morning at school, the statue was presented to the staff, a congratulations cake was unveiled and devoured, and the balance of the day was spent outside, primarily in a marathon game of students and staff wiffle ball.  Chris Otchy homered four times to the amazement of all in attendance.  Around noon a delegation of shoppers went to giant for several packs of hotdogs, and a grilled lunch became part of the day.

Over the years, Coyote day has moved to the Friday closest to May first, has taken various shapes in various locations, but has always stayed close to its original spirit:  Teachers, students, grilling, eating hotdogs, and wiffle ball!  Even though the original Coyote Day activities were shared by the entire school and the current form is only for freshman and sophomores, the numbers are similar.  This year there were more underclassmen in the school than there were students during year one!

Staff and students were divided equally into six teams this year.  Mr. Muntu (and Mr. Nguyen) , Ms. North, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Connelly, Mr. Pereira, and Mr. Goldie lead the teams while Ms. Bowen orchestrated everything else.  Ms. Warden opened the festivities with a brief talk about the founding of the school (where some students found out that they do not go to the George Washington Community School) and the origins of Coyote Day.  Then we rotated round-robin style playing each other in Basketball, Frisbee Football, and Trivial Pursuit.  Wiffle Ball was going to be a huge game made by combing three of the smaller teams together to make each side, but alas, the forecast took a turn-for-the-worst, and a deluge of April showers arrived in early May.  An hour later, the rain let-up and the cook-out portion of the program went on in front of the school.   We finished the day with some inside games, a documentary, and a duet of ‘singing’ and ‘guitar playing’ by Cameron and Zach.  Alumni Jack M. and Alice M. (no relation) stopped by and regaled the underclassmen with tales of yore. In the end two things were clear:  Coyote Day is awesome, even if it rains, and if you’re competing in physical activities, having the school’s youngest teacher on your team certainly helps!

Until next year, “Happy Coyote Day!

Huddled up under the trees in the pouring rain waiting for a truck to take everything back to GWCS. 
Yes, Coyote Day was cut short by the rain so, until next year…