Published: May 16, 2008 01:33 am            

‘All the Colors of Huntsville’

Students at Gibbs Elementary were covered in all different colors of dye from head to toe Thursday — and they didn’t get into any trouble for it.

In fact, they were using the dyes to establish a world record for the highest number of tie-dye shirts produced in a single day as part of a Huntsville’s Promise project entitled “All the Colors of Huntsville.”

“We’re trying to set a world record for tie-dye shirts tied and dyed in one day,” Gibbs Elementary principal Rosa Valles said. “It’s been going really, really great. The weather’s been cooperating with us, and the kids are really excited about getting to use all of the colors on their shirts.

“We have 329 children on campus today, and all of them have gotten to tie-dye.”

Tamara Chasteen, vice president of the Huntsville’s Promise board, organized and executed the program with the assistance of the Gibbs Elementary staff.

The group was joined by a group of volunteers that included the parents of students at the school, Huntsville High School students and various community members.

“This idea actually originated when a former Scott Johnson Elementary art teacher thought it would be fun to try to set a tie-dye record,” Chasteen said. “She’s no longer working there, but the group of us who knew her thought it would still be a good idea, so we worked with the Huntsville Arts Commission to make it happen.

“The project involves three phases — volunteers had to be trained, then the tie-dye event had to actually happen, and plans were also set to try to break the record set on the first try.”

Chasteen said 525 shirts were printed up for the event, and that shirts would continue to be dyed even after school hours ended.

“Over 320 kids, the teachers and staff at the school and a group of community volunteers are participating, as well,” she said. “We have the art club from Huntsville High School, probably a dozen campus parents and groups of community members.

“Also, we’ve gotten tremendous community support for this project. Double Daves, for example, provided us with free pizza for the event.”

According to a Gibbs representative, each of the classes participated in the tie-dye program during their activity period.

“I was a little nervous that not everyone would get to participate, but this has just been so well-organized that everyone’s gotten to have a turn,” Valles said. “The kids have all done at least one shirt.”

To gain funding for the project, Chasteen made a presentation to the Huntsville Arts Commission in which she discussed the educational value of tie-dying.

“One of the justifications we presented to the Huntsville Arts Commission to get the money to conduct this program is that this shows these children the fine art of tie-dye,” she said. ‘We’re using a range of colors values to create depth, for example, and tie-dye also uses principals of math and science.

“Basically, there’s a lot more to it than the classic swirl design people usually think of with tie dye. There’s not even a swirl in our group today.”

Chasteen said the record wouldn’t actually be put in the Guinness Book of World Records, primarily because the type of tie-dye record to beat didn’t really suit the project’s purposes.

“In the records book, they had a record for the longest tie-dye shirt, and it was a half-mile long,” she said. “It doesn’t really do any good for us to make one really big shirt instead a bunch of individual ones, so we decided to do that, instead.

“However, my research has indicated that we’re establishing the first record for the number tie-dye shirts made, so we’ll be publicizing that, at least.”

Chasteen said the third and final phase of the project will involve beating the record set at Gibbs on Thursday.

“We’re hoping to break our record next year,” she said. “From this day, we’re hoping other schools will see this idea and think, ‘Hey, that looks like a fun thing to do.’”

        

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