By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
This week, fourth graders at Holy Family Elementary in Hays will once again celebrate Shrove Tuesday with their annual pancake races.
“This is the 34th annual pancake race,” said Holy Family Elementary teacher Maddy Quimby. “As a former Holy Family student and now teacher, I remember racing when I was in fourth grade. This is a fun tradition that we do year after year. The students we all go out on the playground, and Mrs. Teresa Schrant cooks up pancakes, and they have their frying pans and their aprons and we do a traditional pancake race.”
Schrant said while the tradition is has been a favorite activity for the students over decades, the tradition dates back much further.
“Because the people of England were not supposed to eat eggs, milk or fats during Lent, they used them all up ahead of time, so they would make pancakes with it,” Schrandt said.
According to the official rules, you have to have your hair tied back, you have to wear a dress, and you have to wear an apron, she said.
“But we don't adhere to those rules, because we like the boys to be able to run,” Schrant said. “So, they just have to have an apron and a frying pan. We have all kinds of frying pans coming in — we have itty bitty ones, we have big cast iron ones.”
No matter the size of the pan, “they have to start with a flip,” Quimby said. “And then they run a certain distance down and around an obstacle and they come back and they have to end with a flip and catch it in order for their time to stop.”
After a few cycles of racing, the winner is determined in a final round.
“The kids really look forward to it. And the winners get an engraved spatula to show off,” Schrant said.
“It's something that the fourth graders look forward to from when they're young,” Quimby said. “Only the fourth grade gets to participate. Everybody else gets to watch. And I just think it's really fun. All of the younger kids, especially if they've had older siblings, (have) something to look forward to. And then the older kids kind of get to reminisce about when they were racers.”
That nostalgia also reflects in many of the parents, she said.
“We have a lot of parents who raced as students coming back and racing with their children,” Quimby said.
"We do have to tell the parents to not take it so seriously, because we have had scabs and bruises,” Schrant said.
“And broken teeth and dental work,” Quimby added. “Sometimes the parents are more competitive than the kid.”