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High school prank at Clintonville homecoming

Dead deer placed outside of school

By Erik Buchinger


A homecoming prank at Clintonville High School that included toilet paper, a dead deer, eggs and toilets may result in citations for two students.

On Thursday, Sept. 20, students tossed toilet paper around the trees at Clintonville High School, which is part of homecoming tradition.

The next morning on her way to work, Clintonville High School Principal Kelly Zeinert received a phone call with information there were three toilets in front of the school and a dead deer placed in the driver’s seat of a children’s battery-powered vehicle.

Zeinert said the toilets outside the school is something that has happened in the past, and former high school Principal Lance Bagstad even took a photo of himself sitting on one of them last year for a laugh.

“It’s a tradition thing, but they went too far with the deer,” Zeinert said.

Zeinert said she heard lots of rumors regarding what happened that night but said there was no damage and no deer inside the building.

“There was no damage done to the property,” Zeinert said. “There were lots of rumors about deer being in the school, being in the library or in the gym. There were no dead animals whatsoever in the building.”

Police Chief Jim Beggs said he heard all kinds of stories.

“The rumors out there have this completely out of proportion,” Beggs said.

The people involved were all students. Two may receive trespassing citations, for going inside of the high school and toilet papering Zeinert’s office, according to Beggs.

“My office was decorated, but it wasn’t something that couldn’t have been cleaned up in five minutes,” Zeinert said. “Nothing was stolen, nothing was put on the walls, nothing dead was placed in my office. It was kids who just went a little too far.”

Zeinert said there were no forks placed in the ground at the high school, but there were at her house. She said there were also eggs thrown at the school.

Zeinert said high school students did all of the cleanup in the morning prior to the Friday homecoming activities.

“I really was impressed with the students who said, ‘We don’t want this to ruin homecoming’ and asked ‘what do we need to do to make sure we can do our regular homecoming activities?’” Zeinert said. “The student council led the charge and said let’s clean it up. Let’s claim our school back and say it’s not OK to do this, and let’s work together to clean it up, so probably before 8:30 or so everything was cleaned up.

“The students said they would like to continue on with the homecoming activities if you’ll let us. Absolutely. When the school bands together and says this is what we want and have that Trucker pride, absolutely we’ll do that.”

Zeinert said she was very proud of the way students took charge.

“That probably had me the most proud I’ve been since taking this job because the students rallied together,” Zeinert said. “What a great site that was to see with everybody pitching in. What a great day and the kids’ school spirit showed through.”

Zeinert said she enjoyed her first homecoming week as the Clintonville High School principal, despite Thursday night’s incident.

“The whole week was great, and it was just that minor blip on the radar,” Zeinert said.

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