Walking into his Honors Physics class with a big smile the day before Christmas break, every head in the room snapped towards junior Sean Perry.

Even Physics teacher Lyle Brennen seemed dumbfounded as Perry walked in with a tie that had Brennen’s face and last name on it. “No one in class believed that I would get it [the tie] so I just kept it my little secret,” Perry said.

Perry had previously worn a tie with the Mona Lisa on it every day so Brennen told him that the tie should have his face on it.

“It takes guts for a student to wear a tie with a teacher’s face on it and only someone like Sean with a lot of self-confidence can pull it off,” Brennen said. Soon after Brennen asked Perry to make a tie for him with Perry’s face on it. Perry agreed and brought in the tie for Brennen which he designed and bought off zazzle.com, the same site where he bought his own tie.

But Brennen and Perry are not alone at JC. Others have found a way to wear their ties in a funky way. Principal Paul Barker also sports a type of tie that makes him stand out from a crowd: the bow tie. “I started wearing them around 1985, just off and on, while I was a teacher in Cleveland,” Barker said.

Around JC, Barker is known for his bow tie. He has not worn another kind of tie to school for quite some time. “In the last 15 years the only time I have worn a tie was when I came to interview to apply for the position of principal at JC,” Barker said.

Seniors Ricky Demicco and KJ Hockaday started the “short tie” trend at JC.

“We wore our ties like that because they symbolize who we are. We see that Principal Barker wears a bow tie, so we wanted to wear a short tie also,” Hockaday said. The trend has recently been stopped by the administration.

So, why do students and teachers from JC wear these creative ties? The reason is quite simple—they find normal ties a bit too average or just plain difficult.

Barker thinks that wearing bow ties are easier than regular ties, once you know how to tie them of course. He never ruins a tie when he’s eating something messy and claims that they are a lot easier to wear.

“I think normal ties are boring to be completely honest,” Perry said. “The dress code is so strict that all guys basically look the same with the clothes we have to wear.” Brennen agrees that Perry’s tie is one-of-a-kind. “Nothing like this has ever happened in my long teaching career, and it will not be forgotten,” Brennen said.\

Meg Kirchner is a reporter or “The Patriot” and jcpatriot.com.