Traditions

As an Orme student, you’ll enjoy an abundance of on-campus activities and rituals.

Traditions here are enriched by our heritage, while staying in tune with current student interests and aspirations. Each morning throughout your tenure at Orme you’ll be signaled it is time to seize your day with the ringing of the Orme Bell in front of Founders Hall. Every other week you will dress in more formal attire for Vespers, an Orme tradition dating back to 1951. You and the entire Orme community will then attend Dress Dinner, and enjoy an organic garden-to-table family-style meal in Founders Hall together. Some weeks you’ll choose to attend Coffee House with your friends, or a performance in the big red Horsecollar Theater to cheer on fellow student talent. Every week you’ll be expected to fulfill your chore responsibilities, whether in your dorm, out in the orchard or auto shop, or other facilities on campus. Ultimately, as you graduate from Orme, you are ‘pinned’ with the Quarter Circle V-Bar pin and receive your diploma in a Western-style leather diploma case, while enjoying our most important tradition: Commencement Services held on the Graduation Lawn. 

Commencement Day
Commencement Day

The Founders of The Orme School believed in traditional values.

Uncle Chick, in writing the Orme School Philosophy,* referred to a number of them including:

  • Honesty and integrity
  • An appreciation of learning
  • An understanding of the world and its people
  • Respect for other people’s feelings and property
  • Friendliness and positive attitudes
  • Acceptance of responsibility
  • A sense of community
  • A willingness to work for one’s community to make it better
  • An appreciation of beauty in our natural surroundings

*Excerpted from Values and Beliefs of The Orme School, by Charles H. Orme, Jr.