Virginia Tech, like the other senior military academies, has a strong class ring tradition. Ours dates back to 1911 when a student designed a ring for his class a year after they finished college. Now, a class-elected committee designs a unique ring for each class, and ours features everything from bars downtown to eight stars in the Blacksburg sky honoring the eight class of 2010 members we lost on April 16, 2007. The junior class ring design is debuted in the fall, and juniors receive them over the Ring Weekend in the spring. My ring is meaningful because of the tradition and because Mac and I officially started dating that same weekend. The class of 2016 (omg, yikes) has their class ring weekend this weekend, so I’m feeling nostalgic and mushy.
Virginia Tech has a Ring Banquet on Friday night followed by the Ring Dance and class formation on Saturday. At the dance, the junior members of the Corps of Cadets create a formation depicting the class year, and then dates exchange class rings. The evening is capped off with fireworks on the Drillfield and excessive after-partying. My sophomore year, I had the honor of attending Ring Dance as the date of a junior Cadet (not Mac) and presenting him with his class ring. Junior year, I went with one of my pledge sisters. Her boyfriend was in North Carolina, and Mac and I weren’t really official yet (though they both told us after the fact they would’ve gone with us). Pretty much all of the Alpha Gam juniors went as a big group, and sharing Ring Dance and receiving my ring with my sisters is a wonderful memory.
It sounds like an amazing tradition!
So cool! Makes me wish I would have gone to a 4 year college.
Very cool! One of my friends is a West Point grad and I remember her always making a huge deal about ring weekend.
How neat!
That is so cool. Clemson does a Ring Ceremony but no dance or dinner. That is cool that each year the ring is a little different.
I had never heard of the Ring Tradition before my freshman orientation, but it’s one of my favorite Tech traditions.