After countless nights of planning, preparing, and painting, students are finally able to see their entire high school experience on a pair of pants. Seniors have been waiting for years to be able to participate in this tradition that makes Noblesville students stand out from the rest. A long-standing Noblesville ritual, senior cords have been a right of passage for seniors for decades. 

Senior cords began at Purdue University in 1904 when two seniors discovered the flashy yellow corduroy fabric at Taylor Steffen Co. and decided to make trousers out of it. They eventually came up with the idea of decorating them, and by the time the class of 1905 was to graduate, the students made it a point to make senior cords a part of their class traditions. The activity spread quickly across many schools in Indiana and NHS quickly joined in, adopting the tradition in the 1950s. Now, in place of the classic corduroy, students today use clean white colored pants. But just like their predecessors, today’s cords still reflect seniors’ high school memories.