Are senior pranks a disappearing tradition?

The Dallas Morning News worries that in many Texas schools the senior prank is a fast disappearing tradition. The reasons for its departure: high-tech security and stricter discipline standards. One senior is quoted as saying, "Maybe we'd do something if there weren't cameras everywhere and punishments weren't so crazy."

Well, it's not disappearing everywhere. This year students at Fort Walton Beach High School slipped the "F word" into the yearbook by spelling it out in red letters spread across several pages. Students at Christian Community School ordered 5100 free priority mail boxes from the post office and stacked them floor to ceiling in the school hallway. And some students at Normal Community West High School released greased pigs into the auditorium.

Pranks

Posted on Thu Jun 04, 2009


Comments

In the link to the yearbook story there's a video where you can see how it was done (I love the fact that she uses the word "quartile").
Posted by Ken  on  Fri Jun 05, 2009  at  09:05 AM
When I was a senior some seniors decided it would be a funny prank to steal a gravestone and leave it in the front turn-around at the school. Of course heads had to roll, and the entire senior class (about 150 kids) was threatened with action if they didn't promptly turn in the pranksters. I'm sure they would have been suspended and probably charged with a crime. As far as I know no one ever did turn them in, and as a result they came down hard on the whole class and pretty much ruined graduation for everyone in a multitude of ways. Ah, great memories of being a young person with no rights who can be punished for something someone you don't even know did. Can you imagine if police could punish whole communities if one person broke a law? Kind of like that.

People need to lighten up.
Posted by Kristen55  on  Fri Jun 05, 2009  at  04:39 PM
Yeah, vandalising graves is such a funny prank. . .

I think that part of the problem is that so many of the pranks seem to be either stupid or harmful, if not outright illegal. If students were more thoughtful in their pranks and went for things that were just quirky and fun and original, then there would be a bit more tolerance in how senior pranks were viewed by the administration.

Welding a car around a flagpole is a good prank. Tricking a rival school into holding up signs at a sports event that spell out something embarrassing to them is a good prank. Planting a garden on a traffic island is a rather insipid prank. Calling in a bomb threat is a downright stupid prank. Students need to put more thought and creativity into their pranks.
Posted by Accipiter  on  Fri Jun 05, 2009  at  09:14 PM
I was thinking about the dearth of senior pranks recently. To me, it fits in with the general lack of rebellion in society these days. I'm old enough to remember hippies and while I thought that whole movement was as much about impressing girls as anything else, at least there was the spirit of rebellion in the air.

As far as I'm concerned, kids today just toe the line WAY too much. Subvert a societal norm while you're still young, for Chrissakes!
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Sat Jun 06, 2009  at  01:12 AM
The F- word in the yearbook reminds me of a prank from when I was in 6th grade. The middle school had a contest to determine the yearbook cover. One of the kid's art won, and all the yearbooks were printed. Only after the printing did someone realize that he had hidden the F word in the grass. The school panicked and ended up putting white stickers over the corner of each of the books to cover it up. Of course, we all found creative ways to peel them off leaving the book cover and the F word intact. In the end I think it was good for the school. I never would have bought one myself had it not been so forbidden.
Posted by Razela  on  Wed Jun 10, 2009  at  07:31 PM
The senior prank at my wife's school was to let a live turkey loose in the cafeteria.

Apparently scared turkeys crap a whole lot.
Posted by Mike  on  Sun Jun 14, 2009  at  01:52 PM
When I was a sophomore or junior, the senior prank at my high school was to lock all the stairwells in the building at the end of the day(I forget how it was done). Um, huge safety hazard in case of fire?
Posted by Whittier  on  Sun Jul 12, 2009  at  03:11 AM
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