Students Celebrate One Last Hurrah in Medieval Times

 

May 8, 2019

On May 2, the Meadowlark Gymnasium transformed into a castle room from medieval times, and a Medieval Feast began at 6:00 p.m. Students dressed in period costumes and served a meal that might have been consumed during the medieval period-the 5th through the 15th centuries.

Sixth graders began to arrive around 5:30 on Thursday evening to put on costumes and to show parents their models of castles and other projects. Following this show-and-tell session, everyone gathered for the meal. Lord Martin arranged all the royalty, lords, ladies, and guests into an orderly line before they could enter Meadowlark Manor, and each was announced by Herald Lily Surber, a high school student volunteer.

According to Lady Deanon, the menu remains much the same as in the past with a three-course meal consisting of all medieval recipes. The first course was barley in stock (beef barley soup) and bread. The second course was roast pig, coleslaw, glazed carrots, honey-sweetened apples, and turmeric rice. The final course was a dessert made by parent volunteers who prepared a medieval apple or apricot tart.

Superintendent Darin Hannum played the role of the king and asked Lord Martin to handle the responsibility of knighting the sixth graders who had earned that honor. Place-settings at the royal table were reserved for King Hannum and Queen Evans (Meadowlark Secretary, Melissa Evans), Lord Martin (Principal Jon Martin), Lord and Lady Williams (Mr. Levi Williams, the school district's music teacher, and his wife, Hillary), Lord and Lady Deanon (Moses Deanon, the district's business manager, and his wife Janelle, sixth grade teacher), Lord Weinheimer (Mr. Bryce Weinheimer, sixth grade teacher), and Lady Miller (reporter for the Blaine County Journal).

The Medieval Feast is the culminating event of a unit of study in which students learn about the everyday life of people living in Europe from around 500-1500 A.D. Students engage in lessons about the social hierarchy, jobs and economy, castle life, and the advancements of the time.

The medieval project also involves research about castles of the period. Each student is responsible for building and researching his/her own castle. Some students base their castle off an actual medieval castle, but bearing the same name as their own last name, while others simply create a castle from their imaginations. Every castle was required to include five or more areas with accurate labels and an accompanying description to explain the use of each section. These castles were on display in the school's entry and hallway. Some were constructed from sugar cubes, others from Legos or cardboard or plastic. They were accented with items like textured paints, stones, flags, miniature plastic figures, and inverted ice cream cones repurposed to resemble turrets.

According to Mrs. Deanon, the key objective of this unit is for students to immerse themselves in the life and times of medieval Europe. Through simulations, such as creating feudal contracts between serfs and lords, the youth learn how those on the bottom of the social pyramid struggled to just survive. They also practice workmanship and teamwork through the formation of their own craft guilds. While building a castle, they get a sense of how manors functioned. They even learn the physics of catapults in their science lessons with Mr. Weinheimer.

On Thursday evening, Meadowlark Manor was decorated with crests, shields, flags, stained glass windows, stone walls, wall sconces lit with orange and red tissue paper, and decorative and insulating tapestries (lavishly painted bulletin board paper)-all artistic renditions created by the sixth graders to represent the past.

"The feast is a way for students to celebrate what they have learned and to have one last hurrah in medieval times!" Deanon exclaimed.

Typically, a high school band student plays the trumpet herald, but this year Mr. Williams played the revelries prior to any announcements. Acting as crowd entertainment, sixth grader Asher Brinkman served as the court jester-Jester Oswald-and Brockton Elliot led various shenanigans as Sir Merlin the wizard. Brinkman moved from table to table telling jokes, and Elliot performed card tricks. Later in the evening several jousting bouts took place, with tricycles serving as trusty mounts and mop handles as jousting lances. In the night's "featured joust," Lord Martin was bested by Sir Merlin.

Out of the 35 sixth graders this year, twelve earned the honor of knighthood. To earn that status, they had to perform various acts of chivalry. As Lady Deanon explained, some of those duties included helping women and girls, giving aid to those in trouble, redressing an observed wrong, and completing an act of bravery. To make this honor more prestigious, an adult over 21 had to witness these acts, and the same adult could only witness two. So to become a knight, students had to complete eight different challenges and have at least four different adults confirm that they had done so.

During the ceremony to knight these chivalrous squires, Lord Martin announced that this was the largest group in the history of Meadowlark Manor. He commanded the squires: Rilee Molyneaux, Mekayla Brown, Shae Shackelford, Oliver Standiford, Jacob Metcalfe, Hannah Schoen, Sami Malsam, Brockton Elliot, Gracie Skoyen, Kohen Sullivan, Jeni Mord, and Addison Olsen-to recite the vow of knighthood. Then, he tapped both shoulders of each candidate while saying, "In the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, go forth and be brave; I dub thee, Sir Knight."

During the evening, entertainment was also provided by the sixth grade band and choir under the direction of Mr. Levi Williams. The band played a piece arranged by Mike Hannickel, entitled Heroic Fanfare and March in honor of all the knights, and the choir sang "The Magic Flute" by Mozart, arranged by Ed Harris.

Before the crowd dispersed for the evening, Lady Deanon thanked all those who had made the night a success. Although her list was long, she gave special recognition to the National Honor Society members who helped in the kitchen, to Heidi Brown and the lunch crew for baking the bread and helping with the meal, to Chrissy Downs for preparing the meal, to Bobbi Weinheimer for all of her assistance, to the Methodist Church for use of the serving dishes, and to Mr. Martin, Bryce Weinheimer, and Moses Deanon for all of their help and support.

"It's a team effort," Deanon said. "Thank you all for coming and for helping us celebrate. This is really a reward to all of the students for working so hard."

 
 

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