By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Students at Wilson Elementary School celebrated a 20-year tradition Thursday by honoring their mothers at their annual Mother’s Tea.

Gloria Blackwell, music teacher, has worked at the school for 20 years, and said the tradition started before her tenure at the school.

The second-grade classes, which accounted for about 70 students performed an insect-themed musical titled “Bugz!” In addition, the children made flowers of tissue paper and presented their moms with live carnations and framed pictures of themselves.

The closing of the program was a slide show of pictures of the children when they were babies and what they look like now. The children “Oooed,” “Ahed,” and giggled as they saw the baby pictures and then shouted the students names as their identities were revealed.

“It’s cool,” said Brianne Sultzer, mom of Harper. “The kids have been together for the last three years and you get to see how they have grown up.”

Mom Freddi Unruh and Parker, 8, will be spending Mother’s Day at a soccer tournament this weekend.

“I think it is heart warming,” she said. “You get to see how they have grown in the last seven or eight years.”

Other grades used to put on year-end programs or musicals, but changes in curriculum have made it difficult to fit everything in, Blackwell said.

Candace Sage, teacher, said the school’s staff has worked to keep the tradition alive.

“It is awesome,” she said. “It is not something that we could give up.”