Goofiness Before Graduation: High-school seniors love pranks, but principals aren’t smiling
by Jane Hawes
The Columbus Dispatch
April 23, 2010
If there’s a naked kid with a Nerf gun in your front yard, chances are you live near an Olentangy high-school senior.
It’s that perilous time of year leading up to high-school graduation, but fear not. There are rules that even those in the grip of “senioritis” will obey.
“There’s no shooting when someone’s on the clock at work, or on school property at any time, or at church,” said Olentangy Liberty High School senior Joe Kon. “And you can’t get shot if you’re naked.”
Until they graduate on June 6, Kon and about half his graduating class of 375 are playing a game known as “senior shootout.” Teams of six students are pitted against one another in five-day rounds in which the goal is to suffer the fewest Nerf-bullet “fatalities.” In the event of a tie, there’s a two-player shootout at Liberty Park.
It is not a school-sanctioned event, both Kon and Liberty Principal Mark Raiff are quick to note.
“I’m pretty strict, both at school and at home, but my senior son is doing shootout,” said Raiff, whose son, Michael, is among those still “alive” after three rounds of Nerf action. “I’m hoping he gets knocked out soon.”
Raiff and other local school officials say they navigate a careful tack in the weeks before graduation. All it takes is one stupid mistake to tip exuberance into excess.
Three years ago, three Olentangy students were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct when another student they were chasing rammed one of their cars with hers to get away. A couple of weeks after that, four Westerville Central High School students also were arrested on similar charges when a school official mistook their participation in the school’s “senior tag” game for a kidnapping.
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