By Amantha Garpiel

[email protected]

TIPP CITY — What started as a senior class prank by the graduating class of 2014 is now an annual tradition for Tippecanoe High School seniors on their last day of school. Each year the graduating seniors travel to school in a Senior Parade using various forms of transportation.

While it started as a senior prank, the city of Tipp City and the school staff found it dangerous to the students and other drivers on the road as the different forms of transportation are not approved for road travel and can back up traffic. So, to keep everyone safe, the Tippecanoe High School staff made it a school-sanctioned Senior Parade with supervision from parents, staff and the Tipp City Police Department.

“It started as a prank and now it’s a school thing. It’s just a lot of fun, it’s the think you look forward to as a senior, getting to ride in front of all of our parents and the community,” said Ally Broering, the senior who helped put together the 2023 Senior Parade.

For the past two years, Upper Room Worship Center has hosted the gathering before the parade and providing the seniors with breakfast as they prepare for the parade to the high school.

The Tippecanoe High School graduating class of 2023 showed up in force with bicycles, long boards, golf carts, four-wheelers, ATVs, classic cars, and boats towed by parents. One parent, Donnie Chaney, who retired from the Tipp City Fire and EMS Department just over a year ago received permission from Fire Chief Cameron Haller to use the antique fire truck to escort his daughter, Kennedy Chaney, in the Senior Parade on her last day of high school.

In honor of the Tippecanoe High School senior, Carson Robbins, who passed away in April, two of his friends brought a cardboard cutout of Robbins to the parade as a way to include him in the senior tradition. Robbins’ friends, Max Dunaway and Gordon Haas, carried the cutout in their ATV through the parade from the Upper Room Worship Center to the Tippecanoe High School.