MarthaEngel

Ms. Sisson didn’t know. Mr. Koesters didn’t know. Mrs. Raabe, Sr. Joan, Mrs. Delisi and Mrs. Sullivan didn’t know, either. 

When was the first Surprise Day? 

Clearly, it was memorable. 

Ms. Susie Sisson, currently an English teacher, was the moderator of Student Board from 1994, her first year teaching at Marian, until 2008. “I don’t know when it started. “I think it had been going for a long time already,” Sisson said. But, “It kind of looked like it does today,” she said. 

“I think it started with the showing of a movie. There was one year when students were just stressed out about everything, and the advisor said, ‘let’s just show the kids a movie,’” Sisson said. So on the very first Surprise Day, “they canceled class for the afternoon and just showed a movie in the gym,” she said.

Okay. Ms. Sisson didn’t know for sure.

Mr. Mark Koesters, then, might. The theology teacher was Student Board moderator from 1990-1994, and takes the credit for making Surprise Day the chaos it is, with comedians, floats, face paint, movies and nap rooms during his time as moderator. “It was very limited. Then when I took over, it kind of exploded,” he said. “We got comedians, hypnotists, the bouncy things. It happened under me,” he said. The Welcome Dance used to be outside with a live band, and “one year, we had 1,500 kids at it…. That raised so much money, that’s why we could put on big Surprise Days,” he said. 

Koesters remembered how it started, too: “There was one long winter where it just got so dreary, the principal secretly had a movie, in the afternoon, and just rolled out the movie, had everybody go to the gym, and they had popcorn,” he said. “I think it was started by Sr. Jeanne Malick,” he said, but Mrs. Delisi might know for sure. 

Well, Mrs. Michelle Delisi didn’t know, either. She was the assistant to the Principal when she started at Marian under Sr. Jeanne Malick, but she couldn’t remember when the tradition started. But, she gave a time frame: Sr. Jeanne was president from 1984-1988, and the Principal after her was Miss Betsy Kish. While Delisi sent Kish a text, I walked into the Haddix where I saw that Mrs. Molly Raabe graduated in the Class of 1989. 

Raabe, the librarian, remembered Surprise Day during her time at Marian. “I remember coming home, and I have three brothers. They would be so furious that we had Surprise Day,” she said. “I believe yes, there was a Surprise Day. I can’t remember what we did, but I feel like there was a popcorn situation, and maybe there was a movie,” she remembered, but she didn’t know exactly when it started either. This gave a very short time frame for when the first Surprise Day could have happened, if we follow Mr. Koester’s knowledge. It’d have to be when Sr. Jeanne was the principal but when Mrs. Raabe wasn’t a student. So Raabe suggested I talk to the sisters, as many of them were in leadership positions at Marian throughout the 70’s and 80’s, and mentioned Sr. Joan.

But Sr. Joan didn’t know when the first Surprise Day was. 

Sr. Joan Houtekier, who currently works in the Advancement Department as a community minister, was chair of the science department in the 1970’s. She didn’t remember Surprise Day at all from that time, but, “You know who I think might know, Sr. Ginny Silvestri,” she said.  

So I emailed Sr. Ginny, while still waiting on the text from Miss Kish. But what did I do next? I used my investigative library skills and found the old Student Board scrapbooks, which are in the library next to Study Room 1. 

Principal Mrs. Susie Sullivan graduated from Marian in 1980. She didn’t remember Surprise Day being during her time at Marian at all– at least, not the way it is now– and also said that Mrs. Delisi might remember. Although Delisi didn’t remember, Sullivan remembered incorrectly, too. 

Mrs. Sullivan seemed to back up what Mr. Koesters had said. Remember how he thought the first Surprise Day happened under Sr. Jeanne in the mid-80’s? Both wrong. 

The Student Board scrapbook from 1979-80, a green binder that contains the directory, minutes from each meeting and Field Day rules, also mentioned Surprise Day. A sheet of loose-leaf dated August 1979, with a list of goals for the year, had Surprise Day listed at the very top, a checkmark next to it. And in the minutes from the Dec. 10 meeting, Surprise Day was scheduled for Feb. 5. That school year, Sr. Ginny Silvestri helped out at the meetings and Miss Betsy Kish was the moderator of Student Board, so their perspective might just be the final puzzle piece, to assert when exactly the tradition started. 

So when was the first Surprise Day?

1975. 

So who really knew? Sr. Ginny Silvestri, Student Board moderator until 1976, and “while I was here, we had two surprise days,” she said. The idea for the first Surprise Day came from a member of Student Board, and “it was a very simple event… and I had this great idea for a movie, because there was a movie called “Wait Until Dark,” she said. The 1967 movie is an Alfred Hitchcock movie starring Audrey Hepburn, and “I knew it was really scary, and it really held your attention,” Silvestri said. When the day came, “we got on the PA– and we were all in class– and somebody explained ‘this is Surprise Day. Drop everything, and everybody go down to the gym.’” she said. The movie was suspenseful, and “the girls are hanging on to each other, they’re screaming, they were just totally taken into the movie,” Silvestri said. “That was it.” Simple, scary, and certainly surprising. 

So picture this: it’s a dreary February afternoon during what feels like an endless and brutally cold winter. That January, the average high temperature was 33 degrees (I did the math. Extreme Weather Watch), and students were sick of it. And then, after lunch one day, the Student Board got on the PA, told everyone to go to the gym, and proclaimed the first Surprise Day. 

The rest, I guess, is history. The beloved tradition passed through decades of students, moderators, movies and yearbooks. 

But what’s different now than it was? “One thing that has changed is the sweatshirts, and the announcements about making sure you have clothes in your locker, that’s all different. All that hype is different,” Sisson said. 

But at the center of it all, as it’s become more hyped and more exciting, the most important things have stayed the same. “It’s just a fun day when we get to play together, spend some time being silly together,” Sisson said. “I think at Marian we work really hard, and we take what we do really seriously, and so I think sometimes it’s important to relax, and be silly, and have fun.”