By Jotham Bailey, Staff Writer
On the morning of Sunday, Aug. 16, two third-year students found themselves wading through Lincoln Marsh, muddying their church clothes and fleeing from yellowjackets. Timothy Ritterbusch and Abraham Baker were chasing a lead on the legendary Senior Bench — one that would ultimately prove fruitless when they arrived at the pinned location to discover the bench had long since been stolen.
The Senior Bench is the object of a class rivalry which has carried on since its beginning in 1911, when the senior class presented the original 800-pound bench to the college as a gift.
Over time, the bench became a symbol of senior status, with a campus custom that only seniors could sit on it. The junior class soon began a playful rivalry when they started moving the bench during senior absences, and now, every year, the juniors and seniors each try to keep the bench in their possession for as long as possible, hiding it from the other class.
For the most part, Wheaton as an institution has stayed out of the bench tradition. The college has, however, introduced guidelines for the play surrounding the bench, and these can be found in the Wheaton Student Handbook. The section includes the purpose of the bench tradition, distance limits and detailed requirements for bench showings.
Steve Ivester, dean for student engagement, considers himself to be the interpreter of the bench’s story and placement, rather than a gatekeeper or custodian. He only steps in to correct misbehavior and infringements on the rules, desiring that Wheaton, as an institution, stay out of moderating the bench’s tradition.
“It really is a grassroots organic student tradition that the college has permitted,” he said. “The bench has its own identity, and we’ve got to help curate that identity as classes so it should be more about the respect and the lore of the bench than the class.”
The current bench is not the same as the original from 1911; the concrete slab has been destroyed and recast multiple times. The bench is now in its fourth iteration, which is lighter, smaller, more durable and includes rebar handles to make it easier to carry. Although the current relic is not fully the same as the one from 100 years ago, each recasting uses chunks of the previous bench.
“The original concrete and stone is still a part of the current bench, so it has the same DNA as the bench from 1911,” Ivester said. “There’s something about it that kind of embodies some of that history and ties us to our past and our legacy.”
Though the bench may still carry with it the memories of the previous generations of Wheaton students, some students believe the tradition is not nearly as popular among the student body as it used to be.
Ryan Walter, a senior studying classical languages, is currently involved in the play surrounding the bench. He not only thinks the student body’s engagement with the tradition has changed over time, but also that fewer people even know about it.
“It seems like there’s less hype about the bench now,” Walter said. “You ask anyone and there’s a 50-50 shot of them even knowing what the bench is or what the rules concerning it are.”
But Ivester doesn’t agree with this perspective. He has been working at Wheaton for 30 years, and still considers the tradition to be as popular as it always has been.
“I don’t think the hype or participation is ‘off’ or waning,” He said. “There are seasons where it is more dramatic than others, but I see the tradition alive and well.”
Walter was involved in the tradition during finals week last year as a junior attempting to steal the bench from the class of ‘26. Walter’s group successfully coordinated their retrieval during the seniors’ last-minute showing of the bench on reading day. However, later that evening, one of the juniors received a text from an unknown number: ‘Thanks for the bench ;).’ When they returned to their hiding spot, the bench was gone. All that remained was a sticky note that read, ‘Thanks –’26.’ The seniors had taken the bench.
The seniors ultimately won last year, passing on the bench to the class of ‘28, who started the semester off with the bench as juniors, according to custom.
“It was a good time,” Walter said. “It’s terribly disappointing, but also was just really fun.”
Some, however, have noted the exclusivity concerning the bench rivalry. Ivester noted how a particular group of seniors had the bench hidden for the majority of the 2025-26 school year, and others in the rivalry started to be frustrated by this.
“Nothing was happening, and people thought the seniors were just being lazy,” he said. “Some suggested getting rid of the tradition and then some people were starting to just get rumors out there that it was just gone.”
Classical languages major Sam Fleisher was one of the seniors who had possession of the bench at the time. He mentioned his difficulty in rallying people around the bench, which resulted in the frustration among some who were participating in the rivalry.
“All the seniors I knew didn’t want anything to do with it besides the small group during the very last week of school,” Fleisher said. “I didn’t know anybody committed enough to do all that and to be in the loop enough to find a location for the bench day of.”
Others point out that this exclusiveness is at odds with the values of class-wide community building at the core of the bench tradition. Anthropology major Cole Pickle is a current senior who has never engaged with the bench, but has noticed a trend in the types of groups who do get involved with the tradition.
“I could see people who are put off by the fact that it’s generally the socially central students who are solely involved with the bench,” Pickle said. “Even though it’s supposed to be a whole class thing.”
Pickle also points out how the groups who engage with the bench tend to be exclusively composed of men. Ivester agrees with the sentiment.
“I like to perpetuate more of a vision of class cohesion around it.” He said. “I like to have both men and women involved. It should not be totally exclusive just to a particular social group.”
Ivester has assumed the responsibility of maintaining that lore and identity of the bench by keeping a file documenting its stories, some of which have achieved legendary status and are still exchanged between students today. One of the best remembered stories of the bench is from 1958, when the class of ’59 stole the bench from the class of ’58 and suspended it above that year’s homecoming football game.
“I think I want to see the bench as something that celebrates our story as a campus and builds us up in just good play and healthy camaraderie between classes and celebration of just the life of a Wheaton experience,” Ivester said.
