KIMBALL -- On Wednesday the Kimball High School senior students participated in the tradition of a school senior prank, which resulted in the sheriff’s department pranking them back. 

Sheriff David Hottell and two deputies visited the school between 10 and 11 a.m. and wrote fake tickets on the students’ cars in the parking lot. 

About a week before the pranking, the seniors talked with Principal Danielle Reader to get their prank approved. They decided on parking their cars randomly throughout the parking lot, even choosing to block off one of the entrances to the parking lot.  

Reader and the staff started to brainstorm a prank of their own. They thought it would be funny to get a book of legitimate-looking tickets and write the students fake parking tickets.  

Social Studies Teacher Jeri Ferguson then talked to Hottell to see if he would be interested in carrying out the prank, who was all for it and thought it was a fun idea. 

After Hottell and the deputies wrote the tickets, they asked the students to show them proof of their licenses as well. 

“They had them pretty scared for a little while,” Ferguson said. “[The deputies] didn’t know whose cars were seniors and whose were juniors, so they were ticketing juniors too; that’s why they thought it was all real and not a prank.” 

Ferguson explained the idea behind wanting to prank the seniors. She said at the end of community clean up a few weeks ago, Ferguson and Track Team Head Coach Tiffany Johnson started a water balloon fight with the students. 

Ferguson said, “The seniors fought back instead of running, so we thought ‘oh, we have to get them back because they were ready for that one. We gotta prank them.’”