First Kindergarteners To Get Future Mustang Shirts, Now EPCHS Seniors

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — It was during the homecoming parade around the neighborhood in 2010 when then-Evergreen Park Community High School principal Bill Sanderson noticed something missing from the scores of youngsters sitting curbside wearing oversized McAuley, Marist and Brother Rice T-shirts.

“I noticed none of the little kids were wearing Evergreen Park Mustang shirts,” said Sanderson, who retired at the end of the 2022-23 school year.

Sanderson had been principal of the EPCHS for three years and still trying to get familiar with the culture of the community. Competing with eight private high schools within a five-mile radius, he wanted to know why parents were willing to spend up to $17,000 annually to send their kids to a private high school.

“Evergreen Park is a community of churches and private schools,” Sanderson said. “I wanted to know if choosing a private school was faith-based, when in my opinion, parents had a reasonably priced alternative, and, personally, a better academic institution in the public high school.”

He decided it was time to instill some Mustang pride in the kindergarteners attending Southwest, Northeast, Southeast and Northwest Schools of becoming future Mustangs. The next year, 2011, Sanderson began distributing Future Mustangs t-shirts to the kindergartners in Evergreen Park’s public schools.

“I saw it in one of the Southland papers,” Sanderson said. “Imitation is the best form of flattery, so I brought it to Evergreen Park the following year.”

There was only one caveat: the kindergartners had to present their Future Mustang t-shirts when they crossed the stage at their graduation ceremony from EPCHS. That was 12 years ago. Now that first group of kindergarten students is ready to graduate in June.

“It became a passion project,” Sanderson said.

Pretty soon, more elementary school-aged children were seen around town wearing Evergreen Park shirts. The point, Sanderson said, was to get Evergreen Park Community High School into the household and in parents’ minds as a viable high school option.

“We passed out 225 shirts that year,” Sanderson said. “When I registered those kids four years ago for their freshmen year, a lot of parents told me that they kept the shirt.”

Twelve years later, the first group of kindergarteners to receive shirts from the class of 2024 are set to graduate in June. Their freshman class entered during the fall of the pandemic, and spent part of their first year in remote learning. When members of the senior class were asked to bring in their T-shirts, three students stepped forward.

EPCHS senior Taylor Yeaman recalls her first full-day of kindergarten at Southwest Elementary School.

“I was really nervous,” Yeaman said. “I cried a lot.”

She remembers two EPCHS seniors coming to her kindergarten class and distributing Future Mustang shirts.

“I thought they were really old,” Yeaman said, who was playing in that evening’s opening game of the varsity girls basketball season. “At the time they were really huge on everyone and now I think they’re tiny. They told us to try to save the shirt.”

Yeaman said she had no problem finding the shirt in her closet.

Contrary to Yeaman's reaction on the first day of kindergarten, Samantha “Sam” Ricks couldn’t wait to join the world at Northeast Elementary.

“I had all my school supplies. I remember being introduced to my peers and teachers," Ricks said, who is the EPCHS drum major. “It was a good feeling.”

EPCHS senior Sam Ricks gets hugs during the Future Mustang shirt giveaway at Northeast School

When she got her “Future Mustang” shirt, Ricks remembers thinking it was so big, "I wondered how I would fit into it someday."

“I’m guessing my mom saved it. I had a bin of old shirts and clothes and there it was,” Ricks added.

A third senior, Ryan Serna, also saved his kindergarten shirt.

This fall, Ricks went back to her alma mater, Northwest Elementary, and passed the Future Mustang-torch to the class of 2035. All the kids loved her right away and gave her bear hugs.

Their advice for Evergreen Park kindergartners:

“I think they should definitely save it,” Ricks said. “I think it would be cool to have something like that to show all your progress.”

“Just come to Evergreen Park, its been a good school,” Yeaman said.

Evergreen Park Community High School counted 929 students at the end of the 2022-23 school year. More than half of the student body landed on the honor roll, comprising 56 percent, or 498 students. The last graduating class earned approximately $16 million in college scholarships.

In addition to showing their shirts, EPCHS seniors who went all 12 years through Evergreen Park public schools will receive special pins at their high school graudation.

In consultation with his family, Sanderson announced his retirement in June, before the first crop of kindergarteners could cross the stage at their high school graduation and turn in their shirts. The retired pincipal called the Future Mustang t-shirt giveaway his “passion project.”

“It was cool to see the three kids and knowing that their parents and grandparents held on to them.” Sanderson said. "I’ll miss the kids turning those shirts in.”