Olds Takes First in Mock Bowl

By CRAIG MILLAR         SEP. 2, 2014

RALEIGH, NC — Fred A. Olds Elementary took first place in Wake County Public School System’s 34th annual Mock Bowl, held at the McKimmon Center Tuesday.

The post-Labor Day event, touted as a great way to get kids back into the school spirit, involved all 104 Wake County elementary schools’ student bodies being bused specifically to taunt each other.

In the parking lot of the McKimmon Center in the 95-degree heat, students were encouraged for three hours to come up with as many creative ways to destroy their opposing schools’ morale as possible. Thrown objects, while not disqualifying, were discouraged. Points were awarded on a 100-point scale, weighted toward younger, screechier voices. Judging the competition were 6th- and 7th-graders from Carnage Middle, who also served as “encouragers.”

Judged best was the Olds children’s repeated and haunting cries of “Turtle Underwear” at students from Myrtle Underwood Elementary, followed closely by Brier Creek’s creative poetry involving “Aldert Poot.” The largely ITB chant of “Bent Wood,” yelled mostly by fifth-graders at children from Brentwood Elementary, was judged too crass, although hilarious. Bugg and Jeffreys Grove Elementaries were disallowed as targets for the fourth year in a row for being “way too easy.”

After three minutes of competition, the most comment observation among teachers was “Holy crap, I need some Percocet and a beer to shotgun.”