The Beginnings, as told by Jerry Duffy, a Founding Member

 

Here we go.... (I had to retype this, 'cause my e-mail blew up, arrgghh)

The first year was 1987, it was fluke. The Fencing Team ran the live chess game, you had to be a member to be on the board. The 1st year chess game was contest between the out going 'guard' aka Senior Fencers, and the 'new guard' next years fencing captain and team. It ended with Pat Cirello, old captain, surrendering the key to the fencing cage to the new captain, Dave Gosse. Lynn (Bulava) Duffey was one of the players on that board. The Theater dept. ran two plays. That was it. That's all have nice day, one time shot. Then Kathy Woodruff, cla 1988, created a Medieval Minor under Prof. Jim Hala and ran the second year as her senior project. She did get official credit for it and a Drew Minor in Medieval Studies. Many of the things that make the TMT a 'real event' (worthy of 400 8th graders) were begun in the second annual. Jenn Green started the Pub Sing. Food was added. T‑shirts were printed. You had to be a Fencing Team member to carry weapons. In 1989, the third year, the Archer tournament was added, by me. I was involved in TMT2 but time didn't allow the development of the tourney until TMT3. Also during TMT3 the official Mike Mann Manual of That Medival Thing was created. The Archivist is supposed to have a copy of this. I think that a copy of Kathy's senior paper was supposed to have been the First thing in the TMT Archives. In 1993 Mike Kogan created the fencing tournament to add another event to the fair with no funds available. Again this was a Fencing Team effort as the other participants were his then team members. In 1996 the 10th annual t-shirt was a composite of all of the designs of the previous years' shirts, and the first one with the design on the back, and with a front / back design. The archivist is supposed to have graphics file copies of all of those 9 shirt designs. I really hope that current TMT members will make a concerted effort to do Alumn publicity and advertising of the next TMTs to come. Many alumn find TMT to be a better reunion event than FAP or reunion weekend.

That is all for now. See you in a couple of weeks.

-JeD cla 1991