The NBHS Spirit Rock is a great way to show your Blackhawk spirit and support your fellow Blackhawks! Whether you want to share words of encouragement for your child or a fellow student, group or team, wish someone a Happy Birthday, show appreciation for a teacher or staff member, celebrate a team victory, or express your love for your school, the rock is the perfect medium. It can be reserved for a single day or up to three consecutive days.

The Low Down on the Spirit Rock:

• Rental Cost: $15.00 per day. Each day covers a 24-hour period, starting from 3:30 PM the day before your reserved date (allowing time for painting) until 3:30 PM on the actual rental day.
• Reservation Process: Online reservations can be made through our online booking engine with a minimum of 24 hours advance notice and a maximum of 60 days. For example, if you want to book the rock for tomorrow, reservations must be made prior to 3:30pm today, and you will only the next two months will be available on the booking calendar. All messages MUST be approved prior to painting and a confirmation email will be sent. You will need to be able to show this confirmation message if asked when you are painting the rock. In the checkout process, be sure to add your message as an “appointment note” as seen in the screenshot below.

• Payment Details: Payment through Square online with any major credit card.
• Refund Policy: No refunds are provided, even in cases of inclement weather.

NBHS Spirit Rock Guidelines:

1. Who can reserve the rock: Reservations can only be made by current NBHS students, custodial parents or guardians of current students, or NBHS staff members.
2. Rental Duration: Each booking is for a 24 hour period 3:30 pm – 3:30 pm with a 24 hour advance booking required. Multiple days may be booked with a maximum of 3 consecutive days for each rental period. Multiple days must be scheduled individually, but the message only needs to be submitted and approved in one booking.
3. Painting Start Time: Begin painting only after 3:30 PM the day before your reservation.
4. Painting End Time: Painting must be completed by 6:00 PM the day you are painting.
5. ONLY the side of the rock facing the front entrance may be painted. We love front and back designs, but one way traffic should only make one side visible, and it makes more work for the person painting after you to have to buy extra paint to cover your design.
6. Content Restrictions: No obscene, foul, political, religious, or controversial messages. Administration reserves the right to remove any content not aligned with the rock’s intended use, and no refunds will be issued. Note that there are security cameras monitoring the rock area 24/7. Anyone caught painting or defacing the rock may face vandalism charges.
7. Cleanup: ONLY the Rock may be painted. DO NOT paint the road or the landscape or any other material surrounding the Rock. The individual or group will be held financially responsible for cleaning and/or repair costs associated with violation of this policy. Anyone painting the Rock must leave the area in clean condition. Remove all paint materials and litter from the site and be sure the paint is disposed of properly off-campus.
8. NBHS PTSO reserves the right to block dates for school use.
9. The individual or group painting the rock assumes liability for any individual or member of the group who may be injured and/or incur clothing or other personal property damage.

Painting Tips:

(Typically takes about an hour, depending on design)

• ONLY the side of the rock facing the school may be painted. We love front and back designs, but one way traffic should only make one side visible, and it makes more work for the person painting after you to have to buy extra paint to cover your design.
• Premium spray paint works best (Rustoleum, etc) vs. a generic store brand.
• 2-3 cans of spray paint should be enough to cover the rock for your base coat. You will probably need to spray it a few times for complete coverage.
• Once you have the base coat done, use chalk to sketch out your design. Try to do large shapes so that it’s easy to see from the road and so that you can use spray paint for most of it.
• Stand back from the rock to make sure you can see the design from there.
• Spray paint your large areas. If you mess up, use your base coat color to fix the mistake.
• Use small bottles of acrylic paint (usually under $1 each) and paint brushes for detailed messages.
• Make sure to bring paper towels to wipe any drips
• Bring a cup of water if you are using a paintbrush.
• Wearing rubber gloves will help keep your hands clean.
• Have fun!