Sir Stands-a-Lot for Pres

Today's post is by guest blogger, Wes Tankersley.

In an issue of The Collegian, a few years after Jonathan and I graduated, there was an article about the greatest on-campus pranks. Needless to say, our handiwork had gone down in infamy. Several had been listed, including "Sir Stands A Lot 4 Pres."

Sir Stands A Lot...That's the suit of armor that resides in the English/History Department in Jennings Annex at MC. Sir Stands A Lot was a name handed down to us I'm sure from Matt Ervin & Co. As it often happens, several ongoing thoughts came together one day. It was the day before SGA elections, which we had no respect for, yet we still wanted to participate in because of our God-given right to elect those we saw fit. A lot of frustration had been brewing over how one runs for office at MC. One particular individual was running off the fact that he was a Christian, the son of an evangelist. (Dude, if you read this, I really am sorry that we had fun at your expense). Surely there were better candidates for us to vote for...Sir Stands A Lot...of course, why hadn't we thought of this before. So the mischief begins. We scoped out Alumni Hall, finding possible holes in the security checks of Campus Security. We waited till late afternoon and rigged the side doors to the stairwell opposite Security so we'd go unnoticed, also making sure that the access to the roof was clear. Next we located Sir Stands A Lot, making sure the doors were unlocked and he was movable. Then we waited, all afternoon and evening, not letting on to anybody what greatness was about to occur. Around midnight we found a sign, for our friend the evangelist who was running for office. It was a nice huge vinyl Coke banner. We took it. We found ducktape. Who am I kidding, JD probably had a role in his backpack. We went to JD's room and on the back decided to write "Sir Stands A Lot 4 Pres"...in ducktape. It was brilliant. We woke Steven up tearing ducktape and moved to the bathroom and finished. Next we rolled it up and walked to the top of the hill, went into Jennings Annex, then planned our next move. We decided that because of cameras we would have to move him downstairs, wait for Security to make their runs, sprint across the street to Provine Chapel around the far side of it, then sprint to the stairwell we had rigged opposite of Security and get it up the stairs and onto the roof as quick as we could. Then we waited, and waited, and waited...maybe an hour or so for things to settle down on campus and clear for our operation. Then came the awkwardness of running with a suit of armor over 7 ft tall around Provine then to Alumni. We successfully got him to roof on the highest part with all the A/C units. Realizing that standing him up and putting out our banner would ruin our chances of him being seen since someone would take him down, we waited...almost till sunrise. So we sat, and talked for hours and I really don't remember what about. It was beautiful up there, quiet, a place you could go on campus to get away and be able to see the city. We loved every minute of it. Close to sunrise we put him out and hung the banner for everyone on campus to see...and then we saw Security. Thinking that we were unseen, but not wanting to take chances, we made a run for it. We made it halfway down before we got caught. We showed our ID's, told the man exactly what we were doing, made promises to take him down in the morning after elections...and he let us go. By the way, Sir Stands A Lot got 27 votes in his first SGA election, not bad for a suit of armor! And even better, a year or so after JD died, Sir Stands A Lot made an appearance at Colonial Heights for a series Brother Mark was doing...we took a picture together.