NJ high school senior prank season: Some great ones from the past

St. Andrews in Middletown, Delaware, had a senior prank that went viral with a video which got 2 million likes and over 9,000 comments. But, for going viral, it was shockingly lame as senior pranks go.

The senior class at the boarding school sneaked into the Head of School Joy McGrath's on-campus home at 1 o'clock in the morning silent as ninjas and camped out there until she came downstairs in the morning.

Surprise! 77 seniors in her kitchen, living room, all over.

But they were very used to the house as McGrath held ice cream socials open to students weekly and generally had an open door policy. Plus, her husband was in on it and let them in. And...that's it.

They were just...there. No greased pigs. No styrofoam peanuts entirely filling the rooms. No shrink wrapping of everything in the house.

In other words, Delaware sucks at senior pranks.

So we asked NJ 101.5 listeners if New Jersey could do better.

Here are just a few of the stories called in.

Frank, a teacher himself at a New Jersey high school, has seen plenty over his years. One was where 20 live chickens were released into the halls. Another involved the skylights that you would look up at from just inside the entrance. Somehow seniors got on top of the school's roof at night and did some artwork on those skylights. So that when you looked up at them from inside the school you saw prominent, let's just say anatomy drawings, all over them.

Angela's old high school did a senior prank involving a particular teacher who was extremely OCD about chairs always being pushed back properly and just so under desks. They got into the school and glued every one of them to the floor so she'd never have to worry about them being askew again. Not surprisingly the teacher failed to see the humor.

Carl had a truly amazing story that wasn't from high school but college. There was a ten-story building on campus. One night, 4 genius seniors spent all night first rewiring the elevator so that when you pressed floor 2 it would in reality stop on 3 without you knowing. Press 3 it would stop on 4 and so on.

Now all the halls outside this elevator pretty much looked similar. So next they took every nameplate off the doors on floor 2 and moved them to 3. Floor 3's were moved to the office doors on floor 4, etc..

When the professors and administrators came to work the next morning none of their keys worked in what they thought were their offices on their floors. The confusion was the stuff of legend until deep into the morning someone figured out what happened.

Back to high schools for David's stories. One year the senior class released 3,000 live crickets in the auditorium. For weeks whenever it was used for any presentation the chirping was so loud speakers were drowned out. Another year three live pigs numbered 1, 2 and 4 were released into the halls.

Ah, a classic!

Still another senior class just before final bell poured hundreds of paintballs across all hallway floors so the students at dismissal had no choice but to step on them splattering paint everywhere and creating a mess that would take an entire weekend to clean up.

Cathleen's husband's senior year of high school saw a prank involving live cows. Somehow during the night, I'm guessing with some form of a bucket truck/cherry picker, students got several live cows onto the roof of the school.

It took most of the day for administration to figure out a way to safely get the animals down. Meanwhile throughout the classrooms on the uppermost floor you could hear the clomping of cows walking on the roof all day.

Take that Delaware!

Now all senior pranks are not created equal. Sometimes they go too far.

In 1998 in Kenilworth seniors at David Brearley High School basically went wilding instead of coming up with a clever prank. They overturned trash cans, verbally abused teachers, sprayed shaving cream everywhere, etc.. 12 students were forced to perform 20 hours of community service or else they weren't going to be given their diplomas.

In 2000 at Pascack Hills High School seniors put over 5,000 Nerf balls into the hallways then released rats, crickets and mice and also pulled the fire alarm. The stress of the prank caused the principal to have a heart attack but thankfully survived.

In 2014 seniors at Teaneck High School sprayed silly string, taped hotdogs to lockers, spread Vaseline on doors all over the school and urinated throughout hallways. 60 students ended up getting arrested.

Senior pranks can be great fun, but let’s stop short of heart attacks and public urination, shall we?

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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