Graduating Essay

        On the riverfront in St. Louis, Missouri sits The Gateway Arch, a stainless steel monument that symbolizes Missouri’s role as The Gateway to the West.  The Arch is a popular tourist attraction and well known landmark in Missouri. In 1947, the design for the Arch by American architect Eero Saarinan and engineer Dr. Hannskarl Bandel was chosen from 147 entries in a competition. Saarinan’s design of the Arch was inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s vision of freedom and democracy for explorers and pioneers. The Arch used to be a monument to honor the Louisiana Purchase.

        In summer of 2014, Tougaloo College Upward Bound Program was taking everybody on a trip to St. Louis, Missouri. We toured the Arch and we even got to ride the Arch 500 ft. to the top to take pictures of the Mississippi River. After we rode the Arch we took a tour of the Museum of Westward Expansion. The tour guide told us a lot of information about why and how the museum was built. We also saw a lot of inventions that they used back in the 1900’s.

        When we got done touring we went to a movie theater that was built inside the building. I cannot recall the name of the movie but it was about how the Arch was built and it gave us a lot more information that we did not know before. After being there for about 3 hours we left and went to the wax museum that was located across from the Arch. We saw a lot of life-like figures like: Jesus and the disciples, MLK Jr., Michael Jackson, Jesus on the cross, Jason Voorhees, Pumpkin Head and etc. We took pictures and just enjoyed looking at all the scary and not scary figures.

        After we left the wax museum we went and ate at Sweetie Pies from the famous show on TLC Welcome to Sweetie Pies. We met the woman that owns the restaurant and her family. They were really nice and the food and service was great. We enjoyed ourselves the whole night until it was time to head back to the hotel. The hotel was a 5 star hotel and it was beautiful outside and inside. We couldn’t enjoy the hotel because we had to stay in the room with our roommate while they taped our door so we could not get out.