Students got cake on Friday, December 9 in remembrance of George Mason’s birthday, but most students at George Mason High School don’t know about the man whom our school is named after.

“I think it would be sort of a shame for you to go to a school named after someone and not know who that person was,” said social studies teacher Mr. Chris Pikrallidas.

Mr. Pikrallidas, a government teacher at Mason for 21 years, organizes a special event for George Mason’s birthday annually. For the past few years, cake has been handed out in honor of Mason’s December 11 birthday.

“In my government classes we’re going to have little parties, and we’ll show a little video and read some things that are about him,” said Pikrallidas.

For Pikrallidas, teaching about George Mason is a passion. In his classroom, he hangs a replica portrait of Mason, and also a replica of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which he tells his students is the multi-million dollar original version.

George Mason is found all around Falls Church as well, including a plaque in front of City Hall honoring him.

Often called the Father of the Bill of Rights, Mason was one of the country’s original founding fathers. He was of great importance to Virginia, too. Not only by working in our local government, but also by being the main author of the the Constitution of Virginia.

Mason students, in addition to having birthday cake, also heard the voice of Mason over the loudspeaker on the same Friday. Some students may assimilate this voice closely to that of Pikrallidas’s.

“It was nice to have George Mason do the pledge of allegiance and announcements on Friday wasn’t it?” Pikrallidas said. “We’re close, so I try to escort him around.”

So, next year, when December 11 comes around and we get free cake, just remember that it celebrates one of the most important politicians of Virginian and American history – and we get the honor of his name being hung above the entrance to our school.