Boar's Head

Tradition holds that the Boar's Head festival (Avon Old Farms edition) began during the Pierpont era, but, when I came across this picture last summer, I began to wonder whether the Founder's era also featured Boar's Head.  The picture is from the thirties and this youth would fit in well at a medieval feast.  On the other hand, the Avon Weekly News-letter, which leaves no stone unturned in describing life at school in the mid-thirties, makes no mention of Boar's Head.  So I spoke to Carol Ketcham, the school archivist, who was able to confirm that the first Boar's Head took place in the mid-fifties.  This youth might have been having his picture taken before a church pageant or perhaps a theater production in the refectory, but he was not headed for Boar's Head.
Aspiration and Perseverance, the history by Gordon Clark Ramsey, has the notes from the 1964 Boar's Head, and it looks as though very little has changed in the last 45 years.  We still start with the Jester yelling "Make Way!" and finish - after St. George has vanquished the dragon - by singing "Auld Lang Syne." Most of the things in between - including many of the Jester's lines and songs we sing - remain unchanged.  One thing that has changed is the musical entertainment.  In 1964, and into the 80s, Brad Mason, a veteran of Broadway who held a variety of teaching and administrative posts (including directing Boar's Head), sang "O Holy Night" as a solo.   Now, of course, we have the Riddlers, who offer a couple of musical interludes.  Nonetheless, it is clear that any of the 1964 cast members would have been able to play his role again in 2011 without much of an adjustment.