The ZUG Scholarship Prank A comedy article
by UnderWhere? 101,398 77 08/01/2011 11:14 PM 2456 views
I recently had a great idea for a stunt: I would offer a cash scholarship to students at a local high school. The idea was that I would give out cash to the two students voted "Class Clown" in their yearbook, and to the graduating senior with the lowest GPA. In doing this, I would:
1) Promote my favorite website (the award was named "The Sir John Hargrave Memorial Award" after the owner of ZUG.com)
2) Give students who normally get nothing at graduation ceremonies a moment of glory
3) Be funny.
Instead, the joke ended up being on me.
The school is not nearly as hilarious as it looks.
It is often said that "everybody loves a clown," but apparently, the faculty at Marcus Whitman High School in western New York hadn't heard that. Though I had been working with officials for several months with no issues, six days before I was slated to hand out the cash scholarship, I received a short email from the school principal:
"I cannot support awards for these categories, and therefore they will not be included in our program. Thank you for your interest."
Apparently, someone at the school had finally gotten around to Googling Sir John Hargrave's name. After a series of emails and phone calls, I was able to convince the powers that be that I was not going to show up and cover their classrooms in tinfoil and toilet paper. However, after the week-long exchange, the ideas that I had originally pitched -- and had gotten approved -- were dead in the water.
In fact, in the end, I was only allowed to physically hand out the award, and not say anything at all to the assembled parents and students. THEY WERE THAT AFRAID OF ME. I got a call prior to my arrival asking me what I planned on wearing. I don't think they really wanted me to even come up on stage, but I insisted. The lighting was terrible, though -- a single spotlight burned out my eyes, and the part of the stage where I was handing the students the awards was dark.
I was told that pranks were not something the school district wished to promote. They refused to allow signed copies of John's book to be given as part of the prize, and they wanted his name taken off everything. When I suggested the scholarship be called the "ZUG Scholarship" instead, the principal and superintendent liked that even less. I could have named it the "Adolf Hitler Scholarship" with less controversy.
Hopefully, the English teacher didn't write this program.
In the end, they allowed the original name of the scholarship, but only after I told them that John had donated half the money. However, in what I can only assume was an attempt to thwart the searches of curious kids -- they spelled John's name wrong in the program. And my own.
Apparently, the school district wanted to discourage pranking SO MUCH, that the designation "class clown" was removed from the yearbook and instead replaced with "Lots of Laughs!" which were 3 kids who were "upbeat" and had "school spirit." The school did not want awards tied to this category at all (because the Marcus Whitman High School does not want to encourage laughter).
The principal, in a lighter moment.
So, as a result, I gave out two "smile awards." The principal hand-picked these kids as students who had a good sense of humor when life gave them lemons. Or something. Anyway, I was told the kids were always happy.
The guy who got the award certainly did smile when I handed him over the envelope containing $50 and a Walmart gift card. The girl winner was not at the event -- the school lacrosse team had made it to the state final four, so she was out playing sports instead of accepting awards. (Go, Wildcats!) Naturally, this resulted in her brother jumping up on stage and stealing her money.
Even the school mascot looks like he's jumping out to rob someone.
Now, to me, the class clown awards were always going to be secondary to the main event -- giving a scholarship to the graduating student with the lowest GPA. I didn't think that I would get too much flak from donors for caving and handing out "smile awards" as long as I could still "stick it to the man" and award a slacker a crapload of cash.
Unfortunately, to get the original idea accepted, I had written up a short explanation about how our online community wanted to reward a student for his perseverance and stick-to-it-iveness-ian-ism. The principal said straight out that the lowest GPA student had neither of these qualities, and in fact, graduation was its own reward for this particular person. "He could have worked a lot harder and done a lot better," he growled.
GAH. That was the whole point of the award! I argued that we wouldn't have to even mention grade-point averages, but it wasn't going to happen. This guy was like a villain from a Disney movie. All we needed was to have him outwitted by a clever, lovable dog.
Inside these envelopes were subversion, chaos, and anarchy. Also, cash.
So, I gave out a "perseverance award" -- $100 cash and an Asus freaking netbook -- to another graduating senior hand-picked by the principal. I was told this student would not receive any other awards, as his GPA wasn't very high, but that he did at least try to succeed. (Or maybe he had bribed the principal.)
BUT, he also was not at the award ceremony. The slacker didn't show! They promised to give the prize to the kid at school the next day, but his Facebook page (yeah, I looked him up after the ceremony) showed that he planned to skip school. There was also this gem:
"Frost getting a job and being responsible, im just gonna ride my snowboard"
At least, I think we can safely say that the spirit of the Sir John Hargrave Memorial Award was upheld.
Thanks again to all of the ZUG readers who donated to the scholarship fund! Jeeni, Dogs Akimbo, Siv, Whistler, Kchiki, Spicey McHaggis, and Bill the Squirrel.
One thing I want to mention - we did receive a thank you note from the slacker kid, but nothing from the other two winners:
I want to thank you so much for the generous award and the Net book which you presented at the Marcus Whitman Senior Award Banquet last Friday. I am sorry I was not there to thank you in person, but I hope you know how much it has meant to me.
I will never forget this and I hope I can meet you sometime in the future! I will continue to persevere and hopefully won't have too many more obstacles to overcome head-on!! Again, thank you very much for this honor and recognition.
One thing I want to mention - we did receive a thank you note from the slacker kid, but nothing from the other two winners:
Further proof the principal chose the wrong kid. Unless he spent the hundred bucks on pot and beer. God I hope he spent the hundred bucks on pot and beer!
I think I should get some recognition for my part in all this. I had to play the part of Undies' secretary when the school dropped the bomb from the principal on our laps while we were on vacation. I had to schedule a time for the principal to call he back when we were driving though a state that didn't have any laws against using a cell phone while driving.
That wasn't too bad, though. When she disciplined me for my slow typing, that went a little too far. How about we agree on a safe word next time?
This is exactly what would have happened if you had tried to give out the award at my high school.
I remember at the Mexican themed pep-rally, one student started throwing tortillas into the crowd. The principal made such a big deal about how irresponsible it was, that it has been a tradition every year since!
I could write a book about things that happened at our pep-rallys, and didn't even go to half of them.
Did you take a picture of the high school from another planet? I thought you were going to write that they got a restraining order against you. Nice try, though. It was still funny.
"We wanted to present this award to the student with the lowest Frost Shakespeare Frost Shakespeare Frost Shakespeare!! grade point average as a means of YOUR MOTHER'S A WHORE encouraging those who have special needs."
"I can tell that this is a very personal issue for you."
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