ANDOVER — Just about every school in the northeast region was closed on Memorial Day,but there was one notable exception: Phillips Academy.

Students at what is certain to be one of the most prestigious preparatory schools in the country, the alma mater of Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, protested this policy Monday by staging a sit-in on the steps of Samuel Phillips Hall. As many as 200 students signed a petition calling for observing the holiday in the same manner as just about everyone else does, with a day off, according to Mika Curran, 15, of Hollis, N.H., a sophomore who was involved in the protest.

Curran estimated that there were usually about 100 students on the steps between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. 

“Hopefully the administration will change course,” she said. 

Under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Anne Gardner, director of religious and spiritual life at Phillips, 15 or so students assembled a memorial consisting of computer-generated images of 244 pairs of boots in front of the bell tower on the main campus.

The pairs of boots represent the 244 Phillips alumni who gave their lives in World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, Gardner wrote in an email to The Eagle-Tribune. Their names are inscribed on war memorials on the campus, she noted.

Phillips was founded in 1778 and many more alumni fought in the conflicts that preceded World War I, she noted.

Numerous Phillips alumni served in the Civil War, “in which over 80 additional names have been discovered on both the Confederate and Union sides,” Gardner wrote.

“There are a number of people currently involved in researching these earlier conflicts to more accurately reflect Andover’s rich military history.This is an ongoing project,” she added.

The boots, Gardner wrote, serve as “a reminder to those in our community that those whose names appear on our war memorials walked on our very campus, were part of our community in a palpable way.”

World War II claimed the largest number of Phillips alumni, with 142 deaths, according to Gardner. The toll for World War I was 85, while the Korean and Vietnam wars each claimed eight Phillips men, she wrote.

So far, one Phillips graduate has died in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan.

“We are not bashing PA (Phillips Academy),” Curran said. She and the other students who participated in the sit-in think that the school should take Memorial Day off “to celebrate the freedom that has been given to us,” she said.

Tracy Sweet, spokeswoman for Phillips Academy, responded that she was looking into the matter of the petition.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday in 1971 by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. All non-essential government offices are closed, as are schools, businesses and other organizations. 

Protesting a lack of observance of a holiday is not a new thing at Phillips Andover. In 1989, Brian Gittens, a senior at that time, staged a one-man sit-in on the steps of Samuel Phillips Hall.He was voicing his objection to the academy’s failure to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which by that time had become a national holiday. Gittens repeatedly played a recording of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on his boom box.

He was voicing his objection to the academy’s failure to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which by that time had become a national holiday. Gittens repeatedly played a recording of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on his boom box.

The school responded by establishing an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. Gittens, a 13-year veteran of the Marines who is now director of diversity initiatives for the University of Virginia School of Medicine, returned to Phillips to speak at this year’s MLK celebration last January.

Paul Tennant of The Eagle-Tribune reported this story.