“Homage” was founded by Ryan Vesler in 2007, selling his retro-style tee-shirts out of an Ohio University dorm room. Vesler, who graduated from Columbus Academy in the class of ‘01, expanded his business and currently has two stores, one in the Short North and the other in Easton. After collaborating with Vesler, our Student Council presented the opportunity for any students to create their own Homage tee-shirt. 

This contest presented the students with a straightforward task: design a tee-shirt, and Homage will produce the upper school’s favorite, as voted on by Academy students. Art Society vetted all entries and picked the three contestants. The only parameters were the tee-shirt must be school-spirit oriented and appropriate. The creators of the winning shirt  would work with Vesler to bring their idea to life.

All tee-candidates were excellent demonstrations of school spirit mixed with creativity. The first, “Super Viking,” is a grey shirt with a CA graphic in the center that looks like the superman logo. The second, or the “Go Bananas” shirt, is a yellow tee with a viking banana, encouraging students to do their favorite student section cheer. The final nominee, the “Professor X” tanktop, depicts Mr. Exline on the front with “Professor X” featured on the back.

Although it was a tight race, the Professor X tee-shirt, created by seniors Rhys Davis, Adam Levine, and John Petrie, won by a narrow margin. With this victory, our student section at basketball games will now be called the “X-box.”

John Petrie asserts, “Mr. Exline feels good about it.” There is no question it will be a great day for the Columbus Academy.

“After all,” Adam Levine adds, “We did not choose this design, the design chose us.”

Written by Hannah Wexner’14