While Senior Squirt is currently on a hiatus at least until May 1, the seniors are always eager to participate in the yearly festivities.

Senior Squirt is annual event that is not sponsored by the school but involves all participating seniors submitting $5 and battling for the chance at victory. Each person is assigned a target and has six days to track his target down and spray him with a water gun.

Each week someone avoids being “shot” as well as shooting his target, he advances to the next round. Eventually the winner is crowned and they receive the entire donated pool from the entry fees.

The game at one point was sanctioned by the school and the event could take place on school grounds, meaning people could take out their targets. The last few years, though, the school decided against promoting this annual tournament, disallowing students from participating in Senior Squirt anywhere on school property. I sat down with our principal Mrs. Katie Barthel to find out why.

Principal Mrs. Julie Barthel said safety and security were the main reasons for the school administration to make this change. She said, “We don’t want to endorse something we have seen, even just through the national news, stories where kids are getting hurt. We just didn’t want to promote something that we think our kids could get injured.”

Barthel is not opposed to bringing Senior Squirt back in a different manner, saying, “We had a couple of students that came in (before the school was shut down) that wanted to talk to me about policies and procedures, and they wanted to have a student advocacy board, which I love. I want more opportunities for students.”

Barthel also said that she does not truly understand all the details and intricacies of Senior Squirt, “so if students wanted to come and bring me their proposals and tell me what it would be like, I would absolutely be open to that,” she said.

Barthel spoke on the game itself saying that she loves the idea of it. She said, “It’s fun it brings the Senior Class together.” The aspect that detracts from that, though, is when she has “read and seen videos online of people going up at night and pounding at someone’s window,” Barthel said.

Perhaps this spring if Senior Squirt is able to make a reappearance, everyone could add to the fight against COVID-19 by filling their squirt guns with Lysol.