Hey Day T-shirts ready to wear

Juniors can rest assured that anything thrown at them this Hey Day will land squarely on a traditional, red Hey Day T-shirt.

In an effort to prevent a shirt shortage like last year's, the Junior Class Board has already obtained the commemorative shirts for this Friday's Hey Day.

All juniors traditionally wear a specific style of T-shirt, cane and hat as they march around campus and are assailed by the seniors, in recent years with thrown objects including food.

Last April, errors in T-shirt production delayed hundreds of juniors from acquiring the shirts until the day before Hey Day. Representatives from the student-run company The Shirt Guyz, which printed the shirts, had to hand-deliver them to students on the eve of the event.

This year, the shirts were produced by another student company -- What 2 Wear Inc. --and extra precautions were taken to prevent any problems.

One such precaution, according to Junior Class President Andrew Kaplan, was an earlier due-date for shirt-design contest submissions.

"We did this to ensure that the printer would have three weeks to complete the job," Kaplan, a Wharton student, said. We also worked to "ensure that the printer we chose would have capability to handle such a large order in the time they were given," he said.

The responsibility for last year's delay fell on the company to which The Shirt Guyz outsourced production, according to Senior Class President and College student Pierre Gooding.

"The company in charge failed to make the shirts in a timely manner, and they were not in a classic red color, so we had to ship them all back," Gooding said.

Last year's problem was a fluke, Gooding said, adding that the current Junior Class Board's was taking measures to ensure a similar debacle did not occur.

"We've done this on numerous occasions and never had a problem, so I was confident that they'd be able to do a good job" this year, Gooding said.

Two thousand shirts have already been printed for this year's event. The junior class has about 2,400 members.

"Pretty much everyone who wants to buy a shirt will have the opportunity to buy one," Kaplan said.

He also noted that the class board received bids from a number of local companies. Each year, the board generally chooses the company that offers the lowest bid.

What 2 Wear Inc., the company selected for this year's job, is run by Wharton junior Tony Wavering.

"Our competitive bid, our graphic art and the class board's past experience with us helped us get the job," Wavering said. "We were very excited to get the order."

Wavering also noted that before bidding for the job, he communicated with his supply chain to ensure timely production.

"After receiving the job, we took the class board's deadline of April 16 and then set an earlier deadline for our production," he said, adding that the shirt order was delivered on Thursday.

The shirts will be available through this Thursday on Locust Walk from 11:30 to 4:00.

Shirts will cost $15, the same price as last year. A shirt can be purchased along with a coupon redeemable for a hat and cane for $25. Any remaining shirts will be sold on Friday at the Hey Day picnic.

"That money goes toward paying for Hey Day, clean-up of Hey Day, as well as toward Senior Week and other senior-class events next year," Kaplan said.

Kaplan said the theme for this year's shirts is based off of a Las Vegas promotional slogan -- "What happens in the Hey, stays in the Hey."

"We made an effort to make sure the shirts would be playful but not offensive," Kaplan said.

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