The Weekly Wednesday Night Door Prize (WWDP) is a recurring source of joy — and if you are lucky enough, prizes — for the student body of MSMS. Currently hosted by faculty members Thomas Easterling, Chuck Yarborough, Elizabeth Morgan, and Lori Pierce, this activity occurs every Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. as a closing to the day’s tutorials.

Established in 2010, WWDP began simply as a method to ensure that the building was secure and empty after tutorials. To motivate students to exit the building so that the faculty could go home, Easterling began offering students prizes as an incentive to be out of the building on time. Over the years, not only have the prizes gotten better, but Easterling has also enlisted the assistance of other faculty.

“Back then, tutorials ran from 7-9 p.m. Although I was quite ready to leave at 9, I discovered that some students needed encouragement to get out of the building,” Easterling said. “Weekly Wednesday Night Door Prize came about in 2010 as a way to accomplish that. It was hardly weekly, but I like alliteration. By 2013, Bill Odom (a biology teacher who retired in 2020) and Yarborough joined.

Junior Claire Ellison, like many students, said she regards the WWDP highly.

“My view on the WWDP is that it is a great way to build a connection between the students and teachers,” Ellison said. “We only ever see them in an academic setting. By having these door prizes, we get to see them in a new light.”

The teachers managing the WWDP seek to ensure that the future of this MSMS tradition remains positive as well. Easterling said the students’ constant participation is the main reason this activity has existed for so long.

“As long as students are still having fun — and faculty occasionally wander into Bargain Hunt or need to clean out their closets — we’ll keep having WWDP,” Easterling said.

Yarbrough also said he is enthusiastic about the prospects for the WWDP for the upcoming year.

“My outlook is that the prizes this year and in the foreseeable future will always be as fabulous and fantastic — some have called the prizes fantabulous — as they have ever been,” Yarborough said. “Each week, Weekly Wednesday Door Prize is a fun opportunity to smile and laugh a little bit with other members of the MSMS community.”