This year, Paint ‘n’ Patches, Sweet Briar’s first and oldest tap club, celebrates its 100th anniversary. In honor of the occasion, and to preserve an important piece of the club’s material history, on Saturday, Sept. 26 members will officially retire a banner that has been beloved — and coveted — since 1964.

The ceremony is part of Homecoming Weekend and will take place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in the green room at Babcock Fine Arts Center. In addition to the banner retirement, there will be a slide show of archival PnP photos, theater tours, mask decorating for alumnae children, and banner making.

According to PnP president Madeleine MacIntire ’10, the Aints and Asses — PnP’s rival — once tried to steal the 1964 banner, which has the names of three decades worth of club presidents sewn on the back. They did not succeed, but if they had, the heist would have left an indelible mark on the club’s prize possession.

“We didn’t want them putting their patch on the back of it.” MacIntire explained. “If they steal your flag and put their patch on the back of it, you can’t take it off. Paint ‘n’ Patches flag has never been stolen.”

The 1964 banner has not been in use since 1998, when Melissa Coffey, who now works in the College’s alumnae office, was PnP’s president. After hearing rumors that the Aints and Asses were plotting to abscond with the purple and green felt flag, she hid it, and it remained hidden for 11 years.

That year, she instructed the new club members — called “babies” — to make a new banner, which has been used ever since. “We were worried,” Coffey said. “If they stole our new banner, that would be traumatizing, [but the 1964 banner] is a historic relic, so it went into hiding.”

Upon its retirement, the banner will be displayed in a specially made box — safe from the elements and, hopefully, tomfoolery.

PnP members — there are currently 33 — are “tapped” in the spring, and can be chosen at any point in their Sweet Briar career. MacIntire, a biology major, said about one-half to two-thirds of the current members are not theater majors. The only requirement is an interest in theater.

As part of their club duties, PnP members are required to work on Sweet Briar Theatre mainstage productions, senior directorial projects, Late Night Vixens events, and the 2010 Fringe Festival, which will be held this winter.

Paint ‘n’ Patches is one of the “core four” tap clubs, MacIntire said, which also includes Aints and Asses, Chung Mungs and Tau Phi.

For more information about PnP or the banner retirement ceremony, contact MacIntire at macintire10@sbc.edu.