PRINTRoosters, cows and mice, oh my!
For Bruins and Kewpies, causing trouble is tradition
ILLUSTRATION: TARYN WOOD
September 24, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Coming up with creative ways to torment faculty and underclassmen has always been a traditional cure for senioritis. Hickman and Rock Bridge upperclassmen have been on the top of their games during the past few years: They’ve used pigs, tractors and even hovercrafts to promote school spirit.
Hickman has its share of pranksters who have used all kinds and sizes of animals to get the job done. After a big rooster release in the hallways in 2003, the students got even more creative.
- Scenes from the Providence Bowl
- Fast times at Hickman High
- Tech-savvy students
- The young and the reckless
- Rumors and realities
- Overcoming obstacles
- The spread
- The Education of Segregation
- Lifelong leaders
- Edged out
- Crosstown competition
- Playing the field
- Say what?
- Where are they now?
- On the Job: High School Custodians
- After-school alliance
- Rival Survival
- Through the Years
- High school mascots go head to head
“The students bought mice, colored them gold and purple and walked around while placing them on other students,” says Terese Dishaw, who has been at Hickman for nine years as a special education and biology teacher. “It was fun, but hard to get all of the mice together without causing them harm,” she says. They also took a giant fake chicken from the top of the Mid-Mo Trailer sales lot and put it on the top of the school.
Hickman pranksters seem to love using farm animals as part of their shenanigans; it doesn’t matter if they are real or fake.
Not only did they use fake animals to throw off the faculty, they used bonafide Columbia livestock. “Years before, they took a cow and placed it upstairs,” Dishaw says. After numerous attempts, many helpers pushed and shoved the 1,000-lb. animal onto the elevator. An animal that size truly made the faculty sweat.
But one of Hickman’s most memorable pranks is a scandal that happened in 1996. “I was teaching The Epic of Gilgamesh, and I met one of my sophomore students in the library who was trying to impress me,” longtime English teacher Diana Rahm said in a March 2004 interview with the The Purple & Gold newspaper. “I’m going through the book, and reading it and showing my favorite pictures to her.” Rahm went to point out her favorite picture only to find it covered by a pornographic photo. Students had slipped inappropriate photos into books throughout the media center, many of which weren’t discovered until years later.
Hickman has plenty of pranks under its belt from the past, but Rock Bridge is definitely right on its coattails. “The most creative, hands down, was a year when two boys made a hovercraft through working with the robotics team and engineers and rode in on it to graduation,” says Marilyn Toalson, a teacher in the Gifted and Talented Program at Rock Bridge.
At Rock Bridge’s graduation awards ceremony in 2005, a water balloon-ambush aimed at the underclassmen made things a little slippery when wet. “(The balloons) were hidden in our gowns, then thrown out into the crowd,” says Diamond Scott, who graduated that year. “The underclassmen did not like it very much to say the least, along with the faculty. It was not the most popular prank, that’s for sure.”
Although pranks can be the highlight of senior year, there are always repercussions. Pay attention, seniors. “Fortunately, the last years I have gotten lucky by students asking permission for what they were going to do as pranks,” Hickman principal Mike Jeffers says. “But if property gets damaged, the student(s) will be liable.”
Both schools have a consensus about punishment, which in the past has included cleaning and doing community service.
The students of Hickman and Rock Bridge are on the forefront of creativity. They’ve pulled off many memorable and spirited pranks that students and the community won’t soon forget. Oh, and class of 2010: No copycating.
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