Twice a year, Gunston declares a “Green and White Day” and students, faculty, and staff divide into two teams and compete in activities that range from canoe races to chopstick competitions, relay races, and more. The event begins with “the sorting” where current Green and White team captains pull names from a hat and all new students and employees are assigned to a team. 

After the event had to be cancelled this spring, Gunston was determined to re-design the entire event to make it possible this fall. With Mr. Mellinger on parental leave with his adorable new son Jacob, the back-up planning team (Ms. Beck, Mr. Wiening, Ms. Grabis and Mr. Law) jumped into action to review all activities for what they dubbed “covidability.” First, they split the day into two, with the sorting and sign up being held Thursday afternoon, and the activities held the following day. 

“We restructured the day to increase participation, decrease crowds of spectators, and adapted our traditional programming to be as distanced as possible,” explained Ms. Beck. “Special thanks to the Green Captains (Bella Adams and Max Brady) and White Captains (Campbell Parkhurst and Sydney Nittle) who led their teams to record high levels of participation and cheered on the adaption of War Games (smelly socks for the win!) and concluded the day with a heartfelt thank you.”

Overall it was a fantastic day of competition for both the Green and Whites teams. The canoe races came down to some photo finishes with the Green team bringing home the win though not before Mr. Law and Mrs. Grabis defeated the previously undefeated faculty canoe duo of Ms. Beck and Mr. Hoisington.
 
The Green team continued showing strong performances by taking home the win in the memorization challenge and the White Team came back swinging in kickball, where they decimated the Green team with a final score of 8-0!
 
Both teams went head to head (literally) in a big brain battle with chess ending in a tie. With both teams in a cerebral deadlock the Green team tipped the scales, winning every 2 mile race in the relays.
 
The White team wasn't going anywhere without a fight, however. They came in and dominated the erg relay winning both the men’s and women’s 2000m relay, leaving the Green team in their wake. White team took that momentum on to the weight lifting competition where they fought for a well-earned lifting victory.  
 
Special thanks to Ms. Newell who live streamed the sorting on Thursday, and Mr. Torrey Pocock of RiggoPro, who was there to film on Green and White Day. Overall results for the fall Green and White Day will not be revealed until Gunston’s spring awards ceremony.