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No lard on Herndon Monument for climb

This year’s Naval Academy freshman class ascended the Yard’s Herndon Monument with one of the fastest times in Annapolis history Monday because it was not greased with lard, the result of an order from the school’s superintendent.

Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler ordered the Brigade of Midshipmen not to slather the 21-foot granite obelisk with lard “to improve the safety of the event,” said his spokesman, Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, and without that traditional hindrance, it took this year’s class of plebes only two minutes and five seconds to scale the shaft and replace the white hat on its peak with an officer-style cover.

When the monument has been larded up, a typical time is more than two hours.

Not only did upperclassman not grease the monument, they also did not spray the plebes with hoses, as they have done in the past, although that part of the event was first eliminated last year, Carpenter said.

With no lard and no water, the plebes formed an orderly human pyramid around the monument and enabled Midshipman 4th Class Keegan Albi, 20, of Eugene, Ore., to take a seat atop the obelisk. According to Naval Academy lore, the feat means Albi will be the first among his class to become an admiral — although no midshipman who has made it to the top of the Herndon Monument has been the first in his or her class to make flag.

Superintendent questioned safety, purpose

Fowler’s order not to lubricate the Herndon Monument comes after he took aim at the ritual in a briefing with reporters earlier this month, citing the risk each year for midshipmen to get hurt and what he called a better team-building exercise for plebes in the year-end Sea Trials. But Fowler stopped short of eliminating the Herndon climb, and dozens of Navy Times readers sounded off to criticize him and the prospect that the ritual could go away.

Carpenter said that no midshipmen were hurt in Monday’s climb.

According to an official Navy Academy history of the Herndon Monument released with Fowler’s comments earlier this month, there have been several years in which the shaft was not greased, and each time it dramatically cut the time plebes needed.

The official record, of one minute, 30 seconds, was set in 1969 by the Class of 1972, according to the Naval Academy.

Discuss: The 2010 Herndon climb