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Used shaving cream and silly string cans littered the KMC parking lot after the Class of 2019’s version of the annual senior parking lot prank May 13, and multiple underclassmen were sent home to get cleaned up after being covered with the messy materials. Despite the current state of the senior prank day, principal Chris Bloomer said it started off more innocently.

“There was a time where—and I don’t know if the seniors met with the principal and asked, but—they basically came back the Monday after they were done,” Bloomer said. “The first time they did it, it was actually fairly cordial. They came, they met, they actually brought grills and fixed breakfast for everybody that was there, even fed some of the senior teachers like [religion teachers] Mr. [James] Lewis and Mrs. [Beth] Ferraro and some of the other senior teachers. It was fun, it was great, and so then we kind of got into this habit where every year has to one-up the year before. So, then, the next year, it was ‘we’re going to bring crazy vehicles.’ We had tractors and boats and trailers and all kinds of stuff and it just kept escalating. The next year, we had farm animals and people brought pens and motorbikes and it’s continually changed, while staying in that same vein.

“Now, the last couple of years, we’ve gotten away from its design to maybe create a sense of community among the class, now it’s more of a harassment of everybody that’s not a senior. The last couple of years we’ve had cars that have been damaged because if they’re not cleaned right away and there’s shoe polish or shaving cream left on the paint, it’ll damage the paint.”

Though he could be considered as having been harassed, junior Reese Danitschek, who was covered with shaving cream, along with his car, said he was not upset with how things played out.

“I was OK with it, because, I mean, I got out of first block,” Danitschek said. “It was all cleanable. You could get into some other stuff that wasn’t cleanable, like if I got peanut butter all over my car that would suck, but I got a free car wash and got all of that taken care of.”

The students who were individually accosted by seniors had some knowledge of what was going to happen to them beforehand, though. Sophomore Kassidy Andrist, whose sister Katelyn is a senior, said she was aware to some extent that she would be targeted, but she was not expecting to get sent home.

“I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t know it was going to be that extreme,” said Kassidy, who was covered in shaving cream. “I knew I was going to be hit somewhat because of my sister and all of her friends, but I didn’t really think I was going to get sent home because it was that bad.”

One of Andrist’s friends, sophomore Ella Scott, was also sent home to get cleaned up after being attacked with ketchup, shaving cream, silly string and water. Yet, she said she enjoyed it.

“It’s the seniors’ fun thing,” Scott said. “I wasn’t going to get mad about it. I got to go home and shower, too. This year was better than last year, in my opinion. I think it was more over-the-top.”

Bloomer said the possibility of not allowing the seniors back at all after they have finished classes has been discussed, but he thinks that is too extreme.

“We’ve thought about guidelines, but guidelines if they’re not enforced are kind of worthless,” Bloomer said. “We’ve thought about having police here and just not allowing seniors back at all. When it’s all said and done, we could say it’s trespassing, but I don’t know that anybody wants to go to that extreme. I think that we would like to meet with them and we’d like to find that middle ground, where we can say, ‘okay, you guys have a little bit of fun, but don’t harm or hurt other people.’ If we could come to that understanding, then I think it’s great.”