Wilson High School Senior Prank '05:
The Trojan Horse

As the year came to a close, I realized that all four years of high school I had dreamed of an incredible prank that would be memorable for everyone - jello in the pool, greasing up the pool slide with vegetable oil, using thermite to some destructive means, but nothing had ever come up. Towards the end of the year my good friend Travis and I sat discussing Hamlet and realized something had to be done. We brainstormed...and we brainstormed hard. Some of the ideas...use brick and mortar and cover the front entrance, wiring all of the lockers together (criss-crossing the hall), and various other hopefuls, but then came a revelation. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but it came to us, and it was perfect - a huge Trojan Horse for the Senior Class of the Wilson Trojans in 2005

What follows is a sort of story board of what went down, with times sometimes inserted and real names used. All photos were taken by Jon Beck unless otherwise noted. So please, enjoy, and email deadlierchair@gmail.com with any musings or comments.

A project like this isn't cheap. We calculated that we spent about $370 at Home Depot for various pieces of lumber, hinges, and paint. Here we see Travis at the breakfast/planning table calling around asking for donations and participation. We were quite successful overall in this pursuit.


We enlisted the help of many souls, not limited to humans whatsoever. Here we see Garrett's dog Annie helping out with the pliers.


One day Garrett and I were stressing out because we couldn't get a hold of Travis and all of our supplies and tools were at his house. At noon we finally decided to just go over and work ourselves. Luckily all of the tools were outside, so we finished up the two remaining legs. Then, after that 90 minutes of work, we yelled into windows at Travis's house and finally received a vague 'hello?'...Travis had been asleep through our sawing and drilling for 90 minutes. This is him finally waking up.


Garrett pre-drilling a support piece for the legs. Excellent muscle definition if I do say so myself.


A completed leg!!! From left to right, Travis, Max, Clayton, and Vince. A good team indeed.


Here we see Travis cutting the siding for our horse. This was the cheapest, best colored stuff we could find for the job. Still, it smelled alright, but was really dusty and evidently causes allergy problems for Clayton. It was quite weak, but cheap and thus became our siding.


Here is Max pounding nails into one leg. We built all of the legs at Travis's house and then moved them to our secret staging location.


Our secret entrances were in the legs of the horse. We used hinges and a simple lock with the doors. Travis is seen here testing out the door system. Gus keeps watch over the rest of the yard.


Here we see almost-completed legs and some lumber at our secret staging location.


Garrett told us he was working on the head, and we didn't know what to expect. All in all, this was the most beautiful piece of the entire project. It was pretty fragile, but when we first saw it we were all amazed and astounded to say the least. Great job Garrett, you were a big help.


Again, Garrett helping out. Here he is placing screws for the frame that would hold all of us inside the horse's body.


Travis and Garrett working on the frame, though I think here Garrett is pre-drilling as opposed to actually driving screws.


Travis, Vince, and Paul working on the ribs. This would hold up the siding on the horse and also the roof. Notice the coffee in Vince's hand. This was generously made by the proprietors of our secret location because the coffee I originally made was horrible. Mmm good - it kept us up, and taught me that my stomach hates coffee.


Finally, at about 1 am we started moving our parts to Wilson. It was about six truck loads if I remember correctly. While some of us loaded, others started assembling. One major problem we ran into was our drills weren't cutting it to drive in screws. Luckily, Travis had one drill that could drive screws well. Here we are putting up ribs in the dark. Photo by Geoff Simmons.


There should have been many more pictures in between start and finish, but we were stressed about gettings things done. Here we are, in front of the final product. Even the creators were amazed at how good it looked and how surprising this seemed in the middle of our grassy courtyard. From here on, we stored ourselves inside, talked/slept/ate and waited it out...Photo by Geoff Simmons.


Another outside shot of the horse laying siege upon Wilson. Yes, that small blue character beside the back leg is a person. The final size was 8' wide, 12' long, and 15' tall including the head.


The administration of the school ended up loving the prank. They even allowed us to change the reader board in front of the school to invite in visitors.


This shot was taken by Whitney. This is what the horse looked like during the day. Very nice if I do say so myself.


Here we see our final crowd of participants. Only about 10 had built, the rest were visitors at various times of the day and night.

Questions, questions, questions....