NMH Traditions

The best traditions have been around a long time, like The Spade Oration, which happens at commencement and honors hard work and new growth. Other great traditions throw down a challenge. Rope Pull is a junior-senior rivalry and a rollicking way to start each year. Mountain Day is a surprise holiday during which all classes are cancelled so we can all go climb a mountain. Juniors usually tackle Northfield Mountain. Seniors climb New Hampshire’s 3,165-foot Mount Monadnock. Then there’s the Beemis Forslund Pie Race, which awards some 300 pies to students, faculty, alumni, and parents who finish the race within a specified time.

 

Some of our traditions are musical, such as Christmas Vespers, a candlelit service with singing and instrumentals, or Sacred Concert, which started as a surprise salute to our founder, D. L. Moody, and now continues as an opportunity for alumni to come back and sing and celebrate with us.

 

Some of our special events celebrate specific times or dates. The Opening Convocation begins every new year with seniors being congratulated and the community being re-energized. Founder’s Day is basically D.L. Moody’s birthday party and involves a giant, one-tined fork, while The Chat, what we call the senior prom, will end your year under a tent beneath the stars, a few of which you’ll have already reached.