Ramblin’ wrecks from Mines repaint ‘M,’ themselves

By Andy Piper   |   August 25, 2009   |   11:01 AM

Colorado School of Mines’ Class of 2013, 885 strong and each carrying a 10-pound rock, climbed a thousand feet up Mount Zion above Golden on Monday morning in the annual “M-Climb” initiation ceremony.

The hike from the campus to the “M” along Lariat Loop and Lookout Mountain roads was interrupted at several points by upperclassmen who required the climbers to stop and sing the school’s fight song, The Mining Engineer, occasionally accompanied by water hosedowns and other minor indignities.

The climb’s finale was innocently advertised as a whitewash repainting of the stones that make up the “M.” In reality, most of the whitewash ended up on the freshman class, who then returned to campus by bus for showers and a barbeque ahead of the beginning of classes Tuesday.

This year’s freshman class is the largest in Mines’ history. Twenty-five percent are women, and 6 percent are international students from 18 foreign countries. The graduate school at Mines also is having a boom year, with an 18 percent increase in enrollment to 1,150 students.

“While many institutions are seeing an increase in the number of applications, I am aware of none that matches Mines. This difference is likely attributable to those factors that make Mines different as an institution; namely, its institutional focus on Earth, energy and the environment, the quality of its faculty and student body, and the relevancy of its core mission toward addressing some of societies’ most pressing issues,” said Tom Boyd, dean of graduate studies.

The “M” was constructed in 1908 when 250 Mines students and 20 faculty members loaded a supply train of burros and packed their way up Mount Zion, according to school spokesperson Karen Gilbert.

THE MINING ENGINEER (to the same tune as I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech)

I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three hundred pounds,
The college bell to mix it in and clapper to stir it round.
Like every honest fellow, I take my whisky clear,
I’m a rambling wreck from Golden Tech, a helluva engineer.

Chorus
A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva engineer,
A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva engineer,
Like every honest fellow, I take my whisky clear,
I’m a rambling wreck from Golden Tech, a helluva engineer

(Roll your mouse pointer over a full-size photo to see the caption.)

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Tagged: colorado, denver, education, Golden, School of Mines