Palo Alto History. Org

Senior Pranks: Taking it to the Limit

There was one subject on the lips of graduating seniors at Palo Alto High School during their 2007 graduation--- and it had nothing to do with summer internships or starting college in the fall.  Rather, it was the fate of Blaine Marchant, the graduating senior whose spray-painted and tireless Volvo station wagon was found parked upside down on a school deck in the wee hours of June 5th, 2007.  Although, most Paly seniors saw the prank as harmless, school administrators were not amused.  Marchant was arrested, spent seven hours in county jail and faced the possibility of felony charges.

There was an immediate backlash from students and parents who felt that the response was heavy-handed.  More than 100 seniors took to buying $5 T-shirts asking the administration to “Free Tom,” a reference to Marchant’s nickname.  And some 300 people joined a web group in support of Marchant on Facebook.  Paly then seemed to do at least a little backpedaling.  Original estimates of the $3,000 worth of damage were lowered to $530 and Marchant was allowed to walk in Paly’s graduation ceremonies --- where he received a standing ovation.  

Of course, senior pranks are nothing new at Palo Alto’s high schools.  For some, graduation is not complete before they streak the campus or scale high walls to paint their class year on the school roof.   Libraries and pools are often in danger during a high school’s final weeks. One year, students emptied all of the books out of the Gunn High School Library and dumped them in the quad, while another year the library was host to 75 mice and some assorted pigeons and chickens.  In 1968, the pool at Paly played host to a live shark from Monterey Bay, while another year it was completely filled with old tires.

And 1977 saw a particularly artistic stunt, as a group of Paly seniors calling themselves the Michelob Gang spent most of the night arranging beer bottles along the roofs of the buildings surrounding the quad, producing a rather beautiful spectacle.

But nobody was laughing after the unfortunate prank that rattled Palo Alto in 1994.  At 10:15 in the morning on June 8th, an old water fountain on the Gunn High main quad suddenly exploded.  A cloud of smoke and flames up to thirty feet long flew in all directions, showering students with smoke and white-hot burning embers.  Students relaxing, strolling and signing yearbooks on the quad fled as the scene devolved into chaos.  Eleanor Lin and her friend Catherine Meyer were seriously injured, receiving second and third degree burns.  18 others received minor injuries.  News of the smoke bomb made CNN and was covered extensively throughout the Bay Area.

Police later arrested three 18 year-old seniors who confessed to the stunt.  David Chin, Robby Roberts, and Brendan Wheatley said that they were trying to create a smoke bomb, but that the prank had gone wrong.  The boys pleaded guilty to one felony count each and were placed on probation.  After meeting a list of conditions (including speaking to an all-school assembly at Gunn the following year), the charges were reduced to misdemeanors. Lin and Meyer received $100,000 and $50,000 respectively from PAUSD and two of the boys were deemed able to pay.

Of course, no one has ever defended the Gunn pranksters of 1994.  It was a poorly executed and very dangerous stunt.  But Marchant’s overturned Volvo (and the “zero tolerance” reaction from school administrators) prompted great discussion.  Each year as graduation day approaches, the question remains, “How much is too much?” []

 Our Reader's Memories:

"By the way, two of the four members of the Mr. Michelob gang were Mormons, at
least one of who went on to BYU.  The impressive thing about the beer bottle
display was that these guys actually drank all that beer, and it was a lot."   
-Steve