From Marshmallows to Mimes: The GDS Way of Saying Goodbye

Senior pranks are a high school rite of passage, serving as a way for a graduating class to leave a legacy before moving on. These elaborate stunts can range from harmless and funny to disruptive, controversial, or even damaging. What used to be a long-standing tradition for many high schools appears to be dying out, but not at GDS. In our inspiration incubator of a school, the tradition of senior pranking is alive and well.

Director of Student Community Programming and High School Science Teacher Bobby Asher, a veteran GDS faculty member since 1991, recalls some of the more memorable senior pranks at GDS. Mimes, mariachi bands, Vaseline on chairs and doorknobs, cars on what used to be the patio, an indoor hot air balloon, and a sandy beach on the floor were a few of the more colorful ones he mentioned.

Thirty-five-year GDS veteran and High School History Teacher Topher Dunne recalled many as well, and even some of the dates they occurred. “Circa 1993, students took over the library in the morning, even having to deceive the librarian out of the space to do so,” he writes. “With no plumbing in their area of control, it was a short takeover.”

Another year, the students zip-tied all the desks and furniture together in the classrooms.The class of 2013 put portable alarm clocks inside the drop ceilings all over the school, set to different times. “It was days before all of the clocks were found and removed, and the alarm would go off for half an hour, only to go again the next day if nobody recovered it,” said Topher.

In 2015, students managed to somehow set up, use, and then dismantle a Slip N Slide in the high school internet café without causing noticeable water damage. In 2016, knowing that the turf field was going to be torn up at the end of the year, students took most of the desks and chairs from the first floor and arranged them in a “16” on the field. Topher also mentioned some pranks that were questionably appropriate, like having a setup resembling beer pong or using other party-oriented props such as lots of red Solo cups.

One particularly creative and memorable senior prank he recalled involved marshmallows. Prank mastermind and GDS alum Samantha Holloway ’99 tells the story of how, in the spring of her senior year, she and some classmates heard through the grapevine that they could get their hands on a lot of expired marshmallows.

“The idea came from a parent involved in the company as they needed to get rid of them,” writes Samantha. “We met two giant trucks out front in the evening, and all unloaded them in the dark.” At the time, the GDS high school had a patio at the front entrance, and they covered the entire area with them, making it look almost as if it had snowed during the warm spring night. They kept the marshmallows in the bags, though, to avoid making too much of a mess.

“There were people jumping into them because there were just so many marshmallows,” Samantha recalled. “We were called back to school the next day to help clean up because no one could get into the front of the building.”

The seniors even managed to spell out a commemorative “99” on the field with marshmallows. Word of the unique prank soon spread around town, and other schools came to get marshmallows for their own pranks.