A prank by a Mayo High School senior that altered another student’s name in the school’s yearbook could end in the senior’s suspension.
Officials are attempting to scrub the change from the newly released yearbook just days before the end of school.
Students at the southeast Rochester high school have reported that a freshman student’s name was altered in the $85 book to read "Moe Lester." The incorrect name also appeared in the index of names in the back of the book.
Officials were alerted to the change after the yearbooks came out earlier this month.
They have been scrambling through classrooms to get the 1,000 or so books and make changes, which included pasting a sticker over the student’s name to spell the name correctly and then working over the index with what students thought looked to be a Sharpie pen.
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Mayo officials responded this morning, calling the student's actions "inappropriate" and "in poor judgment.
"The yearbook staff is disgusted that their trust was violated, takes the incident very seriously and has taken steps to correct the error," the statement said, also noting disciplinary action was taken against the student.
"We believe that the media’s choice to run this story further victimizes the student whose name was changed in the annual," the statement read.
The student suspected of making the changes is a senior who was in the yearbook class for his English course, Mayo students said. It’s not believed that the suspect and the prank victim knew each other, and the victim’s name apparently was selected at random.
Controversies with yearbooks are an annual issue across the country as some outgoing senior tries to sneak something into the yearbook, sometimes offending others with the message.
In 1996, a senior at Mayo High included what some said was a racist comment in his yearbook senior message. The message contained a series of initials that, if reversed, spelled a racist phrase. It’s unclear, according to news coverage, if the student was disciplined.
In the current case, if a suspension is handed down, the student would likely miss Mayo’s commencement ceremonies on Friday night.
