First “Wireless” on Campus, 1919–1927

In the early years of the school “wireless” meant a wireless radio set installed in Founders cupola. From 1919–1927 students transmitted and received messages from many parts of the world as well as listened to broadcasts of a Hartford orchestra concert and Yale football games.
 

First Performance in the NEO Theater, 1939

Students performed Androcles and the Lion at the sold-out debut performance in the newly completed Loomis Theater. Mr. Batchelder referred to the theater, constructed in large part by students and renamed the Norris Ely Orchard Theater in 1957, “another dream…come true.”
 

First Computer on Campus, 1967

Loomis was one of 18 schools to participate in an innovative Dartmouth College project integrating computer use into secondary schools. Students connected to a mainframe computer at Dartmouth via a telephone line. The project hoped to encourage students to think creatively through computing.
 

First Confluence, 1974

When Chaffee and Loomis merged, so too did their yearbooks. From the Loomiscellany and the Epilogue came the Confluence, named after the joining of the Farmington and Connecticut Rivers. The first Confluence noted, “This year was a mix of the old and new, the traditional and the experimental. Life is more than just a series of cycles in which history repeats itself.”
 

First Girls Ice Hockey Team, 1977–78

Coach Sue Nolan and captain Lauren Watson led the first girls ice hockey team to a season highlight 5-1 win over NMH. The following season the team gained varsity status, earned a winning record, and according to the Confluence, “proved to everyone that LC was ready for girls’ hockey.”
 

First Project Outreach, September 1981

The school welcomed new students with an Outward-Bound-style orientation for the first time in 1981. The daylong program, later named Project Outreach, held many team-building challenges for students. The LOG reported, “While having fun was one of the aims of the program, getting acquainted was an even more important objective.”