Summer Sendoff is Kenyon’s event of the year — a main show performed by one invited artist, accompanied by student band openers, food trucks and various other attractions. The event, organized by Social Board, serves as an opportunity for students to welcome the warmer weather and celebrate the school year drawing to a close. With the event monitored by faculty and rules made clear over email, the event is fairly contained and law-abiding. Sendoff hasn’t always looked this way, however — the event has seen a great deal of evolution from when it first started nearly five decades ago. 

Collegian articles from 2014 and 2020 describe the event’s roots in relation to Kenyon’s “Spring Riot,” an event that wreaked havoc on campus and caused property destruction and student injuries. According to the 2020 article, “riot activities included lighting trees and campus furniture on fire — on one occasion, a piano was thrown out of an Old Kenyon Bullseye window.” Spring Riot continued until it either evolved into, or was stopped by, the creation of Summer Sendoff in 1980 — how it happened remains unclear.  

An article from 2023 discusses “The Parking Riot of ‘64”, when Charles Imel, hired to enforce parking rules in the Village, arrested a student. The following day, hundreds of chanting students made their way to Imel’s home, looting and painting stop signs along the way. This was the first riot of its kind, to be followed by a yearly bonfire during which students fed the flames with everything from old papers to furniture. An excerpt from the article reads, “While there is no concrete proof that Summer Sendoff was introduced to discourage Spring Riot, the more boisterous custom began to decline after Sendoff was first celebrated.”

The aforementioned 2020 account also details Sendoff’s attempts to include new features — free beer until 1987 and two stages in 1996, for example — as well as its testing of various campus locations before settling on the Peirce and Ransom Lawns. The piece also mentions the variety of artists that Sendoff has hosted over the years, a choice sometimes popular among the student body, as was evidenced by The Romantics in 1982, and sometimes initially less popular, showcased in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1986 performance.

Both the 2014 and 2020 articles also highlight the event’s contentious past, whether the conflict lies between students, administration, Gambier Village residents, professors or parents. The 2014 piece summarized it concisely: “It is unlikely that there will ever come a day wherein the administration and the student body agree on the best way to celebrate the end of the year.” The article also describes the many adjustments that have been made to Sendoff. This includes attempts to ban alcohol in efforts to make the event more “family-friendly” and cultivate a sense of community, and the ultimate decision to move it from Saturday to Friday.

There have been conflicts, disagreements and transformations involved in making Summer Sendoff the controlled, constantly-morphing celebration students partake in today. However, both articles describe the delight of the event and its place cemented as a tradition in Kenyon culture, a tradition that is not going anywhere. As students reflect on their most recent Sendoff, the event’s importance to campus culture remains constant. It is no longer a laid-back Saturday music event, but a Friday evening celebration of student and invited performers, complete with free T-shirts and a Kona Ice truck. Sendoff has gone through a great deal of change to be what it is now, and it stands firm for its 45th year in a row — fried pickles, neon wristbands and all.