Academy Ring Dance steeped in tradition :
Class of '58 donates own rings to be melted into Class of 2008 rings

By WENDI WINTERS, For The Capital

There are dances and then there are dances. Though rain and cool weather threatened Saturday's outdoor Ring Dance at the Naval Academy, hundreds of couples rocked to live music on a tented dance floor at Hospital Point and waited expectantly for the fireworks that would bring another year's tradition to an end.

Most of the men wore uniforms, though there were a few lonely penguin tuxes in the crowd. The women wore either glamorous, ultra-feminine evening gowns or mess dress uniforms - a clear sign who was a civilian and who wasn't.

Class rings began appearing on senior midshipmen in 1869. By 1906, the rings had the Naval Academy coat of arms on one side and a crest designed by a class committee on the other. Each student gets to select the top or setting of the ring's stone.

The Ring Dance has been a formal part of Naval Academy life since 1925, spurred in part by a tragedy in 1924. According to the Naval Academy Museum's senior curator Jim Cheevers, for years when the second classmen received their rings, they headed for the sea wall around the Naval Academy and dove into the brackish waters - or were pushed - to symbolically baptize their rings.

In May 1924, the prankish tradition went awry: "During a ring initiation Midshipman Leicester R. Smith, Class of 1925, hit his head on a rock and drowned."

Mr. Cheevers noted, "There had been at least one special dance in the early 1920s celebrating the receiving of class rings, and beginning in 1925 the Ring Dance became the custom of the second class to mark and celebrate them receiving their class rings."

It's a tradition for the date of a male midshipman to wear the ring on a ribbon around her neck to the dance. During the evening, the couple walks through a Shrek-sized replica of the class ring, has a formal photo taken, then approaches a binnacle filled with water and dips the ring in the water.

The Ring Dance binnacle contains water collected each year from the "Seven Seas" - the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, India, Antarctic and Arctic - plus a drop or two of the Severn River. Afterwards the ring is slid onto the mid's finger for the first time.

"Sometimes a grad who's lost a ring and gets a new ring comes back and dips the ring," said Bobbi Collins, wife of '84 Class President Mike Collins.

She noted that miniature class rings came into vogue in the early 20th century for mids to give to their mothers. Later, in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, miniatures were popular engagement rings.

With female midshipmen now part of the academy tradition, the female mids chose either the miniature size or the medium size ring as their class ring, instead of the cumbersome regular gold nugget size selected by many male mids.

"Fiancees still occasionally get a miniature, but it's not as prevalent. And female mids have a lot of jewelry, like class crest pins, tie bars and cufflinks, they can give to their men."

Severna Park resident Timothy Elizabeth Woodbury, wife of Jeff Woodbury, USNA Class of 1991, works for the Alumni Association and is in charge of "lost and found" class rings.

Mrs. Woodbury said despite their cost and cherished personal value, "rings get lost every day. The most common disappearance is when they take it off in a public restroom and put it on a sink to wash their hands and leave it behind. When they remember, even two minutes later, it's gone. Stolen."

Recently one was found in a drainpipe at a car rental place in Salt Lake City. The grad lost it at the Salt Lake City airport several years ago. How it got in there is a mystery. They lose them on beaches all the time.

"We just got three Navy rings and one West Point ring from the estate of a beachcomber with a metal detector in Virginia Beach. He planned to send them back, but never got around to it," Mrs. Woodbury said.

"Another one turned up in a creek bed in the Australian outback. A grad lost it on deployment down under."

She's also seen all kinds of materials used in lieu of a sparkly stone. Toothbrush handles have been whittled to fit. Chance Jewelers on Main Street has a chunk of rock taken from Bancroft Hall that they'll polish and set in the ring.

The miniature on her finger isn't from her husband's class; it's a vintage 1918 they recently purchased.

What makes this year's ring a little unusual is that it is part of a new, two-year-old tradition at the academy called the Bonds of Gold, inspired by a similar tradition at West Point. Graduates and spouses from the Class of 1958, a half-century distant, donated their rings to be melted down and combined with the newly mined gold that went into Class of 2008 rings.

The old class rings and miniatures are weathered and chipped, many have been worn through life's battles and triumphs and are infused with the spirit of the people who wore them.

Among the Bonds of Gold donors this year are: the estates of Capt. Steven Edwards; Charles P. "Nick" Boyle; Carney Gibbons, late wife of Cdr. Thomas Gibbons; and Henry A. Darius Jr., who was involved in the design of the Class of 1958 ring and crest.

His wife, Jo Darius, donated her miniature and more rings came from the Rev. Glynne Harper and Cdr. Brent Taylor; Rear Admiral Walter Cantrell.

'Something we earned'

For 2nd Classman Lacey Savoie of Crowley, La., "the ring is something we earned and are still earning. It's something that will always symbolize these four years for us."

Her roommate, 2nd Classman Stacy Gulley, said, "It symbolizes everything we've gone through and a reminder of our ties to this place.

Midshipman Gulley went to the dance with 2nd Classman Jeff Ryan. With Midshipman Ryan's roommates and date, a whole crowd went to Yellowfin beforehand for dinner.

"Last year, some girls who were not 2nd Classmen showed up at the dance in dresses instead of their uniforms and they got four days detention," said Midshipman Savoie.

Their casualness belies the attention some couples pay to this event.

"Some guys are flying dates in from Washington State. They're paying for a rented house for the weekend, limo, getting their hair and nails done," gulped Midshipman Savoie before the dance.

"Some are staying in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel - that's $500 a night!" exclaimed Midshipman Gulley.

"We fight the stereotype of being a mid girl every day, it sounds corny," sighed Midshipman Savoie. "I'm sure the dance would be a lot more exciting if we were a civilian girl being asked to go."

Their roommate, Audrey Callanan, of Laguna Beach, Calif., is the Ring and Crest Committee chairman.

"Our class submitted designs and mottoes during plebe year. There were a couple of rough sketches and design elements we voted on," said Midshipman Gulley.

'It's special'

Midshipman Savoie is impressed with the new Bonds of Gold program. "It's special," she said.

"It sets Annapolis and other service academies apart. I don't know of any civilian school where a class from 50 years ago participates. This week, grads from the Class of 1960 were out here helping the plebes get through Herndon and the obstacle course.

2nd Classman Callanan's equally proud escort is 2nd Classman Garrett Moore, 20, of North Brookfield, Mass.

"My ring has a blue sapphire stone," he said. "It's my favorite color, it's Navy's color, and the color of the oceans. The tradition of having the ring is the culmination of my academy experiences.

"(It's) the tangible accomplishment of graduating from this place and getting through everything. To me, it's a symbol of hard work we've gone through and memories of this place."

Wendi Winters is a freelance writer living on the Broadneck Peninsula.

Published May 22, 2007, The Capital, Annapolis, Md.