One of the school's most original, unique events--Mum Day--is no longer exclusive to Hoban.

Two Holy Cross schools in southern California have adopted Mum Day and intend to continue the tradition annually. St. Francis High School in Mountain View, and Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, have taken Mum Day and made it their own.

The California students learned of Hoban's tradition at a Holy Cross leadership conference in Austin, Tex., last summer.

St. Francis had its first Mum Day to prepare for a football game on Friday, Oct. 13. The event capped off Rivalry Week, the week before the game against Bellarmine College Prep, a rival Jesuit high school.

Claire Kiely, a senior and the spirit commissioner, was amazed at the reaction of the student body.

"I arrived on campus at 7, and already the entire school was silent," Kiely said. "Even without people enforcing it, the students really bought in."

The school was decorated the night before, and the lights were covered with trash bags, giving the school an eerie, yet festive atmosphere. Silence was enforced by the Mum Day Police, a group of student council members, football players and the biggest students in the school, who were allowed to intimidate talkers in any way they saw fit.

Senior Alex Vlahov described the day.

"Not a word was spoken until the rally, when two of our oldest teachers smashed a papier-mâché model of the rival mascot (a giant bell) to smithereens," Vlahov said. "Everyone went nuts. The noise was deafening."

Simon Raines, director of activities at St. Francis, was also impressed with the school's response.

"The students loved it," Raines said. "It was a lot of fun, and we definitely plan to do it again next year."

For one senior who coördinated the event, there is some regret about not being able to continue being a part of the tradition.

"Mum Day was a huge success," Vlahov said. "But it's bittersweet for me and the rest of the seniors because we're glad we got the ball rolling, but we won't be here to see it in the coming years."

Moreau Catholic, the other school to catch on to the Mum Day craze, celebrated a little differently than St. Francis. Unity Day, as the day was renamed, involved the school staying completely silent, excluding classes, until the pep rally at the end of the day. Assistant principal Peter Shelley is enthusiastic about Unity Day's future.

"It was a smashing success," Shelley said. "The kids and the teachers loved it. It will become a part of our own traditions now."

To get in the spirit, students decorated the school in green and gold and had T-shirts with pictures of Holy Cross founder Basil Moreau made. Unity Day was a part of Spirit Week and pumped up the student body for the upcoming football game against the Castro Valley Trojans.

Although Mum Day was a success in both schools, Hoban junior class president Ellis Thompson has mixed feelings about the borrowing of the Knights' tradition.

"It's cool that we're an example to other Holy Cross schools, but Mum Day is our thing," Thompson said. "It's one of the qualities that makes Hoban unique, and when we lose our uniqueness, what's special about going here anymore?"