A high school principal piped up after seniors pranked him — but not in the way they expected.
A pair of Illinois students pulled off a noisy senior prank when they hired a professional bagpiper to follow their high school principal around and play an assortment of tunes for an hour last week.
Bagpiper Scott Whitman came to Richwoods High School dressed in a kilt and hat to serenade principal Billy Robison for 60 minutes non-stop on Thursday thanks to seniors Maggie Moore and Pierce Hill, according to reports.
The idea came together as a “Plan B” after the two shrewd students tried to hire a mariachi band to do the job, but it was out of their price range, one of the pupils told the Peoria Journal Star.
“I was looking at mariachi bands on Pinterest, the idea was to have them follow (Robison) around,” Moore told the newspaper.
“But it was around Cinco de Mayo and prices were really high, and they were all based out of Chicago.”
But Moore also recalled how she enjoyed listening to bagpipers perform Scottish music growing up so she took her search in a different direction — which was approved by other school administrators ahead of time.
“It was Plan B, but it worked better,” she told the local publication.
Whitman, of the Celtic Cross Pipes and Drums, played various songs, including Amazing Grace and Scotland the Brave, in what he said was a first.
“We get a fair amount of gig requests,” the 34-year-old musician told the Star Journal. “Most are funerals or weddings. Maybe a birthday. But this was my first senior prank request.”
While Moore and Hill told WMBD part of their goal was to “annoy the principal,” Robison was thrilled by the prank once he realized what was happening.
The school principal had Whitman, who is the head of music education at Illinois Wesleyan University, follow him and play throughout the entire school and even outside to the parking lot, video shows.
“I thought it was awesome and very creative, and all credit to the students for coming up with something that is not destructive to the school and the custodians don’t have to clean up after,” Robison told the station.
“It was all in good fun, so I thought it was amazing.”
