Written and researched by: Isabella Aldridge and Nick Schonken
The painting of spirit lane is a tradition that has its roots in the mid-1950s. Since its first brandishing of the blue and white colors of Redwood, it has been painted yearly by ASB around Cowhide time. Showing Redwood’s devotion to school spirit and remembrance of its rivalry with Whitney.
The freshly painted spirit lane brings together a sense of unity as Redwood staff and students prepare for a week of spirit, leading up to the annual cowhide game.
As school makes a return, both ’24 and ’25 students begin to see the Redwood Cowhide traditions for the first time, including the notorious spirit lane.
On the 23 and 24th of October 2021, Redwood’s ASB students came to campus to paint Spirit Lane and set up other various areas across the campus.
Savannah Torres ’23, Redwood’s ASB Spirit Coordinator says, “for the freshman and the sophomores to not be able to witness freshly painted spirit lane, it’s frustrating.”
In efforts to prepare for the rain, ASB painted the spirit lane on the 23rd, hoping to let the paint dry in time. However, on Monday, October 25 a great deal of rain rolled in, peeling and washing away some of Spirit Lane.
Kailynn Rios ’22 is one of the ASB students that spent her weekend working on all things cowhide. Rios says that “although we did [the cowhide decorations] efficiently and got everything that we could do done, it really hurts to see all the hard work we put into this all gone for nothing.”
“Spirit lane is already symbolic in itself, but with the paint stripping off, it just kind of sucks even a little more deeply.”
Kailynn Rios ’22
Rios continued by saying, “not only are [people who are messing with spirit lane] scrapping off the paint [ASB] put on but also scraping off paint that [Redwood ASB alumni] in past years put on.”
Hailey Aston, Redwood’s ASB teacher said “it is frustrating… definitely, because we have a lot of people who take time to paint spirit lane; people who take time out of their weekend like Mr. Miller, who comes to get the ground ready for [ASB], just for it to wash away sadly.”
Moving forward Aston and the ASB students seek to find a way to clean the excess paint off of campus, then possibly find a way and time to repaint.
While this does bring a lot of spirit to the Redwood campus, Aston says, “we will just need to find other ways to be even more spirited, now that we lost our one small aspect.”
It is not common knowledge amongst the average student on campus, but spirit lane used to be painted navy blue, instead of its current light blue.
Mrs. Aston said that “when I got here I did not know it used to be navy, I’ve been here for three years and so I’ve always assumed that it was light blue. I think it would be really cool to go back to the navy just because it is our school color, so maybe, look out in the future”
Tags: cowhide, isabella aldridge, Nick Schonken, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, rhs, spirit lane