Sophomore Class Event: The Amazing Race

On Friday, June 7, the sophomore class government hosted its massively hyped and equally successful class event. The event, The Amazing Race, was a series of athletic and intellectual challenges that pairs of contestants completed throughout the school. After completing a challenge, the two partners received a clue that led to the next location. Some examples of challenges include memorizing and reciting the Star Spangled Banner, hitting a target with a frisbee, and solving riddles.

One of the most difficult aspects of the race was interpreting the clues and finding the correct location. For example, one clue read “I scream, you scream, we all come here for ice cream.” The answer, of course, is the Learning Commons because of the ice cream served there. A slightly more difficult clue was “you might find Bumby or Stewart here.” This clue sent contestants to the math center, where textbooks written by Bumby and Stewart are kept.

The tandem of Alex Friedman and Jake Coleman won the event with a blazing time of roughly 35 minutes, which was undoubtedly helped by their distance running skills. In second place, Danny Stonberg and Taylor Feinberg nearly made a stunning comeback after a slow start.

After the event, the students enjoyed pizza, oreos, and ice cream sandwiches at the Brewster entrance. They also played with frisbees and water balloons, which had been incorporated into challenges earlier in the afternoon.

The event was largely successful due to the enthusiasm of the contestants, the ingenuity of sophomore class president Michael Waxman ’21, and the joint effort of the sophomore and freshman class governments to run each event in the race. Waxman said that the event was inspired by a similar activity he remembers from Camp Greylock in which campers complete a series of difficult challenges all over camp.

However, organizing the event was not as easy as copying the camp event for school. “The most difficult parts of organizing the event were creating challenges that would be fair to all of the participants and setting up the challenges themselves,” said Waxman. He added that he wanted to make sure the event went as smoothly as possible.

Ultimately, the event was a great success. “In the end, all of the hard work paid off, and it was amazing to see all of my peers competing and having a blast on school grounds. I think the event was a great way to bring the sophomore class together and alleviate stress before finals,” concluded Waxman.