Perry Central ends 40-year papier mache tradition with final show

What Perry County loses with Perry Central’s final papier mache show is more than a hallway display. It is the end of a 40-year tradition that started in 1985 and turned students in grades 7 through 12 into builders of local memory, using papier mache to make Indiana history visible for families, teachers and neighbors.

Perry Central Community Schools held the combined International Night and Paper Mache Show on April 21 from 5 to 7 p.m., closing a chapter that had become one of the school’s signature creative events. This year’s theme, Indiana Through the Years, was chosen by students in a vote, giving the final exhibit a statewide storyline rooted in Perry County’s own sense of place.

That local identity carries weight in a county organized in 1814, the last county in Indiana created before the Indiana Territory applied to Congress for an enabling act. Named for War of 1812 naval hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the county now has 19,170 residents, according to the 2020 Census, and includes more than 60,000 acres of the Hoosier National Forest. In a place that small, school traditions tend to matter far beyond the building where they begin.

At Perry Central, months of work went into the show. Students built sculptures and assembled large painted mural backdrops, a process that demanded planning, patience and coordination across grades 7 through 12. The project blended art with history, asking students to highlight notable figures, important events and familiar places from Indiana’s past and present, while giving families a public open house to see the finished work.

The school has long described itself as a school community that feels like family, and the papier mache show fit that identity. For generations of Perry Central students, teachers and parents, it was not simply an assignment but a ritual that tied classroom work to county life and gave the school a public face beyond academics. Perry Central also points to its academic gains, including a four-year average showing 96% of students had early reading skills in place by the end of grade 3, and a district note that 38% of the Class of 2022 completed the first year of college during high school through its Early College High School program.

With the final show now complete, the remaining legacy is in the pieces students made, the backdrops they painted and the memories families will carry from a tradition that ran from 1985 to its 40th year.