The Wall of Fame in the weight room was a big accomplishment for a lot of people in our school, but now it's been painted over, along with the Phantom mascots in the gym.

The Wall of Fame was one wall in the weight room dedicated to students and what they had accomplished through their time in Fitness & Nutrition. Students would set a goal at the beginning of the class and, over time, try to accomplish it, thus earning the right to list their accomplishment on the wall for all to see

“The wall of fame started in 2015,” said Ms. Esslinger, the former PE teacher, who started the wall. “I felt it would be a great way for kids to be an inspiration for future PrHS students.” 

Most people wonder who was the first person to sign the wall, but Mrs. Esslinger remembers the first class to sign it, and she was the last one to sign the wall. 

She said it was a message to her PrHS family. It said, ‘You will all be my PHANTOM family forever. Thank you for the growth, memories, and love.”

You can see Mrs. Esslinger sign the wall on the PRHS PE Instagram page. According to Ms. Esslinger, the wall motivated people to achieve their goals. “To see what other PrHS alums have done, helped open students’ eyes to what they were actually capable of.”

Over the years, many students have had the opportunity to add their names to the wall of fame. Sophomore Clara Euber was on the wall for a hammer curl, 12 pounds, 2 sets of 15, a few weeks before school ended. Clara thought it was a bad idea to cover it up because “Students worked so hard to reach their goals.” 

“(I am) not sad but not happy, I would say (it is) upsetting because the wall has been there for so long, and years of goals are now gone,” Clara says about the wall being covered up. 

Sophomore Vanessa Oechslie says she wasn't on the wall, but she has seen the new paint around the school, “Yeah, I think it was a good idea because the paint was fading.” She said she prefers the new paint because “it's fresh and brighter.”  

“Obie painted the phantom and other stuff in the school store; the school employed him to paint over some things this summer,” Junior Olivia Outslay said. The main thing Obie painted over was the wall of fame.

Why was the wall painted? According to Ms. McLemore, it's because Ms. Papandrea was thinking of moving her room to the weight room, because her band class was getting bigger. 

“As a part of that, we were just gonna paint the whole room. It didn't end up working out; we ended up breaking the wall in between,” Ms. McLemore said regarding expanding the band room.

She said painting over things is a way of “cleaning” the building. “We painted the first floor last year, the second floor was the year before, and the science wing was done,” Ms. McLemore said, noting it was part of the maintenance project. The end of last school year was when they decided to paint the school.

The phantom in the gym got painted over but is going to be painted even bigger in the center of the gym. 

“I think that people get connected to things that they’re a part of, obviously,” Ms. McLemore says, noting that people are, for certain, connected to the wall of fame because their name was on it. She mentioned there was a phantom painted in the 70s but no one knows who drew it. 

“It’s kind of my responsibility to make sure that history is preserved, but also that the building looks nice for people. It's very hard to paint around things and have it look nice,” McLemore said, adding, “We took pictures of the wall, the wall of fame, and we’re just waiting to get them framed.”