BETHESDA, MD- Emily Wilde, Holton-Arms’ community service and clubs coordinator, approved the proposal for the Puzzle Club. The idea initially surfaced when upper school director Chris Lynch took out a Batman-shaped puzzle in his office. He believes puzzles are “a good way to bond and have casual conversation about important topics.” After students completed the Batman puzzle, they finished another one, which had 1,000* (see footnote) non-traditionally shaped puzzle pieces that pictured DC’s National Mall. During the endeavor to finish the puzzle, the mood of the room was tense with moments of boundless ecstasy when a student would finally find the piece for which she had been searching and moments of darkness when students realized how many study halls they wasted working on the puzzle instead of doing homework and applying to college. Just as the puzzle giveth, the puzzle taketh. The puzzle took over students’ lives.
After enormous amounts of pressure from Tara Kimiavi ’19, a group of students created the Puzzle Club. Kimiavi claimed, “Puzzles are just relaxing.” Normally, club proposals are only accepted at the beginning of the year, but because of Kimiavi’s passion for the art of puzzle-doing, Wilde couldn’t resist approving the proposal. When students asked her why she approved the proposal she shrugged and replied, “Of course, I would because why wouldn’t I?”
The puzzle phenomenon has since spread to other administrators’ offices, including 12th grade Dean Yolanda Keener’s. Keener has a particularly challenging comic book puzzle, in which the picture of the puzzle on the front of the box is inaccurate and the puzzle do-er must decode the location of the pieces.
*Originally, the puzzle had 1,000 pieces, but one puzzle piece is still missing. We would greatly appreciate any information on the missing puzzle piece. But Lynch astutely pointed out how this situation could be a good learning experience because it shows that one “will never reach perfection.”
DISCLAIMER: The Puzzle Club is not real, and this article is purely the journalistic styling of Eden Halpert and Lily Schmandt. Ms. Wilde will be accepting club proposals in September 2019 if you are interested in starting a real puzzle club!