by Grace George |

From plastic mice to frozen shirts, fart machines to cling-wrapped rooms and fake emails to a desk in the bathroom, you could say the Social Studies department has a well known history for playing pranks. Though the prank war is not still going on between the teachers, they have left their mark in the building.

“There’s no way to describe the pranks, you just have to watch them,” senior Staci Gann said. “Watching some of the videos, I literally couldn’t breathe, I was laughing so hard.”

Brett Coffman, Tom Rottjakob, and Zach Werner all agree that former social studies teacher Tisdahl was the most fun to prank. He switched to teaching at the Junior High and then left the district. Having pulled many jokes on him like putting his clothes in the freezer, cling-wrapping his room and sending fake emails from his account, they always had a good time with him.

“He was an easy target,” Werner said. “He never picked up on anything he never knew it was coming.”

The pranks have not been going on for a few years now. “Most of the teachers who were involved are no longer in the social studies department so it is more calm.” Rottjakob said.

But some ask, are they really over? “I do miss the pranks, but who knows when they’ll start back up again?” Werner said.

Coffman pulled one of the pranks. “Back when I was a social studies teacher, I had a classroom across from Tisdahl’s and I could see him through a window. One day I hid a fart machine under his desk and I kept pushing the button to make it make noise,” he said. “He was getting annoyed with it all day and finally found where I had hidden it. I saw him walking to my room with an angry look on his face so I handed the remote to a girl in my class. He walked in and saw it in her with the remote in hand, but soon found out I was the one pulling the prank. That was up there in my favorite pranks.”

Werner said one of his favorite pranks was placing a moving fake mouse on the ground next to a teacher who was deathly afraid of mice. They took a video of some pranks, including this one.

“The prank was funny because a lot of planning and preparation went into it,” said Werner.

“Classic!” Junior Caitlyn VanVleck replied after watching the mouse video.

Now there’s only one question left on everyone’s minds are: Will the pranks start back up? Or is the war over forever? Nobody knows the answer. Maybe the social studies teachers are having a secret prank war as we speak? Maybe it will never happen again, and it’s all history. We’ll just have to wait and find out. But, they say history repeats itself, and the social studies teachers know this best.