|
|
Group Hug Record Effort Goes Tragically Awry
PIPESTONE, MN (DPI) - Two staff members of the Harold Stassen Middle School
here were suspended with pay Friday after an attempt by students
to break the Guinness record for the world's largest group hug went
catastrophically wrong and five students were reportedly crushed to death.
"Yah, sure," said Professor Sven Olafson of the University of Minnesota
College of Engineering, "It's hard to overstate the pressures generated
in the center of a group hug by a couple of hundred students hugging each
other, and we Minnesotans aren't much given to overstatement in any case.
Add peer pressure and you've got a pretty volatile situation. You betcha."
Pipestone Community School Superintendent Erik Erickson said that school
policy prevented him from speaking about the suspensions, but nevertheless
indicated that "I can't imagine what the School Social Worker,
Mary Lou Gudmunsdottir and the drama teacher, Irene Bookbinder,
were thinking about when they hatched this harebrained scheme."
"The Pipestone community is devastated by this event," Erickson concluded,
"and needless to say, the students are just crushed."
(Reported by Brother Paul Somerville)
|
|
|
