Shaker Heights (Ohio) Yearbook Cover Contains "Mother" of All Cusswords

It must have been a slow news day for this to make national news, but the cover of the Shaker Heights High School yearbook has a bad word on it.

The mother of all bad words: Fudge

Only it didn't say "fudge." It said THE word. The big one. The queen mother of all dirty words. The F dash dash dash word.

According to a story on Cleveland's Fox8 website, seems a particularly gift student artist was given the honor of designing the cover of the yearbook, and created a crowd of Red Raider mascots. Hidden inside the crowd — and you have to turn it upside down to see it — is the phrase "F--- all y'all."

Oopsie. (If you click the picture below, you can go to the Fox8 News story where they're very helpful in showing you how to find it.)

Principal Michael Griffith was not amused. He wrote a letter to students and their families saying they were suspending yearbook distribution, because "an obscenity was cleverly concealed in the cover artwork."

At least he gave the student some credit for cleverness.

So the school covered up the offending K, U, and C (not necessarily in that order) so they could be given out before the school year ended. They did offer to fix any books that had already been given out, although I can't imagine they had many takers.

Principal Griffith's letter also contained a note — a "sincere apology," said Michael McIntyre from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer — from the artist, which said "I cannot begin to explain the miserable feeling I brought upon myself when I betrayed the trust of all of you."

McIntyre, who may also believe in the Easter Bunny and the merits of high school class basketball (it's an Indiana thing. Sorry.), said:

The sincere apology worked. At the Shaker graduation ceremony Thursday, the student artist received the loudest, most sustained applause of any fellow student as he accepted his diploma.

Uh, Michael, that wasn't in appreciation for a sincere apology. Think back to when you were in high school and one of your classmates pulled some prank right before they graduated (mine was sticking a bunch of For Sale signs in my school's front yard. . . I was a bit of a weenie back then). Didn't the students yell and cheer for the prankster when he or she crossed the stage?

That's what happened in Shaker Heights. No one gave a rip about a sincere apology. They were just excited to see someone pull a prank that lasts longer than a high school relationship and live to tell the tale.

---
Like this post? Leave a comment, Digg it, or Stumble it.