5/5/99
The Lantern Festival, 1999
"I've thought about moving on before, but only recently have I thought about leaving," said Senior Jennifer Ryan, who will graduate on Saturday, May 8. "It scares me," she told her fellow students. "But I know we'll all do well, because we've all done well here, and because Tusculum has prepared us."
Said Senior Mike Burns: "We've seen so many changes at this place. We've seen it all -- what we were and what we were to become. I know when I'm an old man and I come back to this place for homecoming, I'll see these buildings that are being built and I'll know that we were here while it was all happening."
Background:
"The evening before commencement marked the hours of the Lantern Festival, a custom which apparently began in the 1950's and continued until the late 1970's. Seniors, garbed in academic regalia and carrying lanterns, led a procession to an outdoor stage where the lanterns were hung in the shape of a large 'T.' The almost-graduates presented their thoughts concerning the meaning of Tusculum to each of them and then read a sometimes humorous last will and testament of the graduating class. This quasi-academic event closed with the seniors passing their robes on to the juniors and with the singing of the Alma Mater." From Glimpses of Tusculum: A Pictorial History of Tusculum College, by Donal J. Sexton Jr. and Myron J. "Jack" Smith
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