Pranks that rank
For most school pranks, their cluck is usually worse than their peck. Some are poorly planned, not funny, or the pranksters get caught before they can execute their trickery.
For most school pranks, their cluck is usually worse than their peck.
Some are poorly planned, not funny, or the pranksters get caught before they can execute their trickery.
But every now and then, pranksters can rise to the occasion and stir up a decent amount of trouble. Here are some notable recent pranks - don't try these at home (or school), kids:
A group of high-school students in Hazleton, Pa. made the news in a big way three years ago when they painted a massive penis on the Harman-Geist Memorial Field. The giant member's image was even added to Google maps and, according to news reports at the time, no one was ever nabbed for the unlikely work of artistry. Not every high school prank can, er, quite measure up to that.
In 2002 in Bensalem, Bucks County, Penndot officials found "HGP" painted in 8-foot white letters across three lanes of southbound Interstate 95 and in smaller figures: "02". Holy Ghost Preparatory School, a Catholic High School for boys, was a quarter mile away from the scene of the alleged crime - so it didn't require Sherlock Holmes to suspect students were involved. But no one was ever caught for pulling that prank.
In Hilliard, Ohio, in 2007, a 17-year-old boy copied a prank pulled by Yale students in 2004 in which he tricked a crosstown rival football team into holding up signs that together spelled out, "We Suck". Kyle Garchar created a grid that planned how the message would be spelled out once fans held up either a black or white piece of construction paper. Garchar received three days of in-school suspension and was banned from extracurricular activities for a semester for his copycat caper. It's not known if plagiarism was one of the charges.
School was canceled for one high school in Gorham, Maine, last month when pranksters piled snow 4 to 6 feet high in front of each of the 20 entrances and sprayed water into the door locks, freezing them shut.
MTV has been chronicling high school pranks since 2003 with their original program, "High School Stories: Scandals, Pranks, and Controversies."
The first half of each episode generally focuses on the planning and execution of the prank, and the second half is generally directed towards the controversy that follows.
Is this a great country, or what? *
Staff writer David Gambacorta and the Associated Press contributed to this report.