After the first week of school, a Twitter account by the name of “Stay Pler” emerged. The first tweet from the account tagged principal Chris Botts and said, “Hey @thebotty do you miss me?” Botts replied with “I believe you have my stapler.” From there, the banter between Botts and Stay Pler has appeared on students and staff’s feed almost daily. 

The origin of the account came from a history of pranks between some of the staff at Maize and Complete High School. 

“I’ve had the stapler since my very first year of teaching,” Botts said. “When I left Complete in 2012, I left my stapler. Late last year, [P.E. teacher] Mike Darrah was over at Complete, and he saw it in [principal of Complete] Kristy Custer’s office and stole it back for me. That’s kind of how the whole thing started.” 

Former industrial arts teacher Caitlyn Gregory moved to Complete this year and continued the prank. 

“I liked having a little piece of Chris over there, so I would steal it back and take it over there,” Gregory said. “Last year, Darrah took it back to Maize High. So, [this year] I recruited [chemistry teacher Kylee] Utt to be my inside guy and get it for me. It took a couple of weeks, but she happened to walk in one day, and it was there. So, she grabbed it.”

After taking the stapler, Utt and Gregory decided to make a Twitter account for the stapler but wanted to keep the identity of the person behind the account a secret. Senior Hannah Soderstrom, who was in Utt’s Chemistry II Honors class, was involved in getting the word out about the account.

 “The stapler ‘runs’ the account,” Soderstrom said. “[Gregory] wants to make it seem like Stay Pler has its own personality.”

The stapler was taken back by Botts, but Utt and Gregory hope to keep the prank and Twitter alive throughout the year to give students and staff something to brighten their days. 

“I feel like it brings us closer together in the sense that it’s something that we can all laugh about,” Utt said. “The fact that students have heard about it gives me life. I love it. I think having that sense of humor and that little bit of relief brings us all together in a way.”