Rocky Sees the Return of Destructive Hoco Week Pranks
Junior-senior “wars” are back in full swing with destructive pranks, and students are sharing why they do it
The junior-senior wars are traditionally around the week of the homecoming game and dance, meaning the consequence for some students who participate in the war is not being able to go to homecoming.
It’s homecoming week, and that means the return of the junior-senior wars. This recent tradition’s premise is to prank other students–usually a senior targeting a junior or vice versa–and the most recent pranks occurred on Sunday night. The Rocky administration continues to condemn these pranks, saying they can go from harmless fun to criminal quickly, but participating students say they continue pranks out of fun.
“We’re trying to have fun,” an anonymous senior said. He mentioned how participating in junior-senior wars was something he looked forward to since he started high school. “As long as we’re not hurting anybody, I think we should be fine. It’s all in good fun.”
An anonymous junior agreed with that statement, saying that the pranks are all based in fun. Both students asked to be unnamed because even though the pranks last year are no longer able to be prosecuted, they could still get in significant trouble. All events occurring this year are considered within an active criminal investigation and are not discussed here in detail.
The mother of a Rocky senior said that her house was egged last year, and she said that when a window was left open, an egg was thrown inside. Her child declined to be named, but said that they defended their house with paintball guns with some friends.
“I thought it was pretty fun,” the mother said about her experience with the junior-senior wars. She acknowledged that nothing at her house was broken and that they easily cleaned the eggs off their house using a power washer, and said she would’ve felt different if their was serious vandalism. “The kids were having a great time. I mean, as long as no one gets hurt.”
“It borderlines on inappropriateness, and then actually goes into too inappropriate,” Dean Russell Stapleton said about the pranks. “Part of adolescent is having a hard time determining what are appropriate pranks and pranks that are damaging and/or offensive to the point where it’s hard to recover from.”
“Students using homecoming week, a school activity, as an excuse to damage property or create issues in someone else’s home off campus is a huge concern of mine,” Principal Craig Woodall said. “Often we’ll think it’s just fun, but the people who are cleaning eggs, and cleaning glue, and cleaning things of their car or their house don’t find it as fun.”
Stapleton said that in previous years lawns have been covered in sand, sticky things have been thrown against or around houses, houses have been spray painted with racial slurs, and cars have been damaged. Dr. Woodall went on the PA system Monday to remind students that these pranks were not a good representation of Rocky students, and encouraged students to think about how their pranks might affect the victims.
Payton is a senior at Rocky Mountain High School. They've been on the newspaper staff for 3 years. After high school, Payton wants to work as an investigative...
