A greasy, monumental ritual at the Naval Academy ends after more than 2 hours

A first-year U.S. Naval Academy student has stood victorious on classmates' shoulders and placed an upperclassman’s cap atop the Herndon Monument after a grueling, slippery struggle. The Class of 2027 worked together Wednesday to scale the 21-foot obelisk covered in vegetable shortening to replace a white plebe “Dixie cup hat” with an upperclassman’s hat. After the climb is complete, they’re called fourth class midshipmen. This year the climb took two hours, 19 minutes and 11 seconds. The shortest time for is believed to be 1 minute, 30 seconds in 1969. The monument wasn't greased that year. The longest was more than four hours in 1995. Upperclassmen glued down the Dixie cup that year.