Basic seniors continue homecoming tradition

Steve Reyes / Special to the Home News

From left, seniors Ryan Lindquist, Mike Jones, Brandon Nowles and Miguel Martinez helping repair the “B” during homecoming week at Basic High School.

By Frances Vanderploeg (contact)

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | midnight

Every school has homecoming traditions, which is why a couple of hundred Basic High School seniors found themselves trudging up a hill Oct. 22 carrying two-gallon cans of paint in each hand.

The seniors made the trek — which cost some of them vehicle damage or twisted ankles — as part of the annual "Paint the B" tradition.

Each year, the seniors climb up into the River Mountains and paint a giant letter B into the hillside for everyone to see. It's a tradition that dates back almost to the time the school opened in 1942.

It's as important as the usual homecoming traditions: a theme (this year it was Haunted Mansion), king and queen (Erik Rubek and Desirae Sanchez), and the football game, which Basic lost to Del Sol 27-28.

While the school has moved three times in 66 years to accommodate the growing town, the students have always made it a priority to re-establish the B.

Despite all of the work it takes to maintain — lugging gallons of paint up the hill and moving several tons of already-painted rock to form the B before finally repainting each year — the students look forward to the task.

"Everybody gets really excited about it," senior Miranda Riepenhoff said. Her entire family graduated from Basic, and painting the B is something she's looked forward to for many years.

Senior Miguel Martinez said he's anticipated the trip since coming to Basic as a freshman. He remembers seeing the seniors come back covered in paint and knew it was something he wanted to do.

"Being here, it feels like you've accomplished something," Martinez said.

His peers agreed.

"If you think about it, it's the biggest physical memory of your senior year," senior Kristian Chaddick said. "It inspires you to be a Wolf. Once a Wolf, always a Wolf."

Mark Hall-Patton, administrator for the Clark County Heritage Museum, said the high school was named for the Basic townsite, Henderson's original name. The city did not take on the name "Henderson" until 1953, according to the city's official history.

In previous years — when Basic High was downtown where City Hall now sits and later where Lyal Burkholder Junior High School is now located — the B was painted in two spots on the side of Black Mountain. The remnants of the second B is still visible off Horizon Ridge Parkway.

The site of the annual painting was moved to the River Mountains, where it is visible from U.S. 95, after the school moved to its present location at 400 N. Palo Verde Drive in 1972.

Dave Bennion, a Basic High School teacher and graduate, was on student council the year the B was moved to the River Mountains. Bennion said he still remembers traveling with his classmates to lay it out.

At that time, they would wash the B with lime to bleach the rock. Now students use watered-down white paint.

After their first trek up the mountain Oct. 20, the students began climbing down only to realize the B didn't look right. Despite original talk of aching legs and joints, the students climbed back to the top to move more rock.

It was a unifying experience, bringing all the seniors together, if only for an afternoon, students said as they tossed paint on each other.

"At prom you still have your cliques, but here you don't have that," senior Jessie Freeman said.

Frances Vanderploeg can be reached at 990-2660 or frances.vanderploeg@hbcpub.com.