I can’t believe this fabulous story hasn’t yet made the Dope. It seems that the No School Violence frenzy has claimed two high school senior pranksters who dressed up in black to release chickens inside Westerville (OH) High School:
*"It was a senior prank that Westerville City Schools officials said involved two students and 12 chickens in all.
According to a report from Genoa Township police, the two students are accused of turning the chickens loose in the main commons area of Westerville Central High School on Mount Royal Avenue on May 18.
Nicholas Fout, 18, is charged with misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and inducing panic.
Police said Fout dressed from head to toe in black spandex, entered the high school Friday and released seven chickens into the commons area.
Bond was set at $3,500 over the weekend. He posted bond and entered a plea of not guilty in Delaware County Municipal Court Monday.
According to Greg Viebranz, executive director of communications for Westerville City Schools, the other student had five in a bag, but didn’t release them.
Viebranz said the school’s principal and resource officer got the chickens out of the school.
A teacher caught Fout as he allegedly tried to flee."*
I thought it sounded like a cool prank, but hey, I must be a horribly irresponsible person.
I’m just wondering what kind of chickens could “induce panic.” Are these bloodthirsty vampire chickens? :dubious: They should have kept the chickens and used the eggs in the school cafeteria–then everyone would be happy.
I suspect it was the black “ninja suit” rather than the chickens that induced the panic. Schools are a little paranoid about stuff like that these days.
A couple of classes before mine, the Auto Shop seniors disassembled a VW Bug, sneaked in on a Saturday, and reassembled it in the front hallway. there was no door large enough to fit it through so administrators were really baffled for a while.
And then, the class before mine got even with the school librarian, a nasty, nasty woman who loved humiliating people for returning a book one day late. One Wednesday afternoon, they each checked out the maximum (six books per student), then returned all of them (fundamentally it was the the west wall of the high school library) at 8:20 AM. She cried. No one was sympathetic.
I’m sure they’re all going to hell. Me too, for laughing.
Chickens? I woulda recommended bats for inducing panic…
No, it isn’t a good prank at all. It isn’t clever. It is simply destructive just like throwing things at cars. I hate ‘pranks’ that fall into that category. A school randomly smeared with 12 chicken’s worth of shit is disgusting and someone had to clean it up. In this case, the punishment fits the crime and they get an F- for creativity and general hooligan know how because they got caught.
Pranks can only be considered successful if the perpetrators don’t get caught. The threat of consequences and danger is part of why people prank in the first place. They were just stupid about it.
When I was a junior, the senior prank involved spray painting the side of the school, “Class of 2002 rule’s!” (obviously more destructive than ninja-chickening). My English teacher was more offended by the grammar than the vandalism, heh.
My sophmore year in HS, the school board voted (over student protests) to remove everything associated with the Confederacy from our school EXCEPT the mascot (a Confederate Rebel) because it was no longer P.C.
However, it had been tradition for 30 someodd years for the senior choir members to sing a slow version of “Dixie” at the final concert of the year. When my senior year came around, the director threatened to have every single senior suspended and they wouldn’t be allowed to walk at graduation if we got up there and sang “Dixie”.
We did it anyway…pinkies linked, swaying side to side..it was really funny to see the director standing at the top of an aisle in the audience with his face turning bright red as we sang.
Don’t laugh. Chickens are dangerous. My rooster stalks me all over the farm with his five hens in tow. What’s worse, I can hear them back there, feet going thump, thump, thump (chickens are suprisingly noisy walkers). And when I turn around to shoo them away, they all instantly start pecking around on the ground like “no, we weren’t following you… really, we’re just looking for good grubs”
Then when I start walking again, I can hear thump, thump, thump.
And if I slow down… thump… thump… thump… so I swing around and they’re all just pecking at the ground again.
I know I sound paranoid and I SO wish I could get it on camera.
But, beware the chiken. They are evil sneeky creatures.
Oh great.
Now my brain is going “Creeping on my sneaky feet, sneaky feet, sneaky feet. Creeping on my sneaky sneaky feeet!” to the tune of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (I think it’s called).
Before my time at my school some of the students dismantled a VW bug and then reassembled it and hung it over the pool*. From what I heard about the prank one of their fathers was the architect and told them where they could hang it (there are I-beams above the pool) so they wouldn’t, ya know, do any damage. I also heard about them sodding a wing and bricking off one of the hallways.
While I was there the someone released a few hundred crickets in the library which was more annoying then anything else.
A bunch of people put the school up for sale. They listed it in the newspaper like a house (323 rooms, 16 bathroom, 2 indoor pools etc) and swiped all the For Sale signs from around the city and stuck them around the property. A bunch of them got caught and arrested for that (stealing the signs).
That’s really the only big pranks I can think off. The others were just little stuff.
*I always wondered if the Bug over the pool actually happened or if it was just folklore at the school. I just found a newspaper article about it.
I’ve never heard of anyone ever going into a panic upon seeing a chicken. Shouldn’t the school officials be charged for teaching the students to panic at the sight of a dozen chickens?
At my son’s high school, the seniors a couple of years ago swiped 3 goats from a nearby pasture. Painted 1, 2, and 4 on their sides, and released them in the school. They spent 2 or 3 days looking for number 3 before understanding that’s what the real prank was.
A dozen chickens in a school is not a terrorist act. It’s a prank. A little mopping up is not exactly hard labor.