By DEB GRUVER

Staff writer

Classic cars are common carriages for prom.

But the 1926 Model T that junior Arianna Wilson will drive to Peabody-Burns’s prom Saturday has a special story.

She and her grandfather built it — literally — before he died.

Arianna is attending prom with a friend with whom she plays basketball. This will be the second year she’ll be revving up the engine that she and her grandfather, Robert “Steve” Robbins, rebuilt to get to the dance.

“It’s mine,” the 17-year-old said matter-of-factly when asked whose Model T it was.

Arianna drives it “all the time,” she said.

It’s not every high school junior whose school car is a Model T.

She and her grandfather went to Minnesota to get the car.

“It took a while because we moved, and then he got sick,” she said. “But we got it done in a week with the help of a club I’m in called the Flatland T’s.”

The full name of the regional group is the Flatland T’s Model T Ford Club, which is out of Wichita.

Arianna still works on the car when needed.

“It was very fun to build it with him,” she said. “It was just kinda our thing.”

Arianna isn’t the only Peabody-Burns student who will be getting to prom in unusual ways.

Hailey Hamm, a 15-year-old sophomore, will be arriving in a semitrailer truck driven by her date, Weston Gaines.

“We talked about it before, so I kind of expected it,” Hailey said.

Esperanza Solis will make her debut in a 1963 Ford Thunderbird with a white exterior and red interior. It belongs to her older sister.

The girls seemed excited about prom, which a teacher noted will be on April Fool’s Day.

Not necessarily because of the date, Hailey is a little worried about tripping getting out of the semi.