Pigeons land at MTHS
Throughout the school day, two pigeons have been located throughout the MTHS building.
Principal Greg Schwab noticed them this morning when he arrived at school, at about 6 a.m., one in the main entrance near the skylights and one in the main gym.
Schwab said that he’s not sure when the pigeons entered the building, but he didn’t know about them until today. He believes they arrived sometime around Friday afternoon.
After alerting staff members, he and the rest of the office staff Googled “how to get rid of birds in a building” and attempted to lure the animals outside by turning off lights and opening a window. However, it didn’t seem to be working, Schwab said, and one pigeon ended up in Jeniffer Widrig’s room, room 226.
Widrig said that she noticed the bird at about 6:30 a.m., right before first period started. When she came into her room, she said it was in a corner eating a donut.
Despite trying to “shoo” it out an open window, the bird ended up leaving through Widrig’s door and into the hall.
Widrig said that her students wanted to feed the pigeon and thought it was funny.
Schwab said he heard that another staff member managed to catch one and let it free outside. The other bird, Schwab wrote in an all-staff email, “must have heard of the news about his friend and left through a window.”
If the situation had not been resolved, MTHS administration was prepared to “call in the pros,” Schwab wrote and would have had contacted a business in Seattle that specializes in removing birds from buildings.
“[MTHS is] bird-free,” Scwhab said.
There have been rumors, according to Schwab, that a student purposely brought in the birds as a prank. While there will be no further investigation, he does hope that it’s not true because multiple janitors did have to clean up bird droppings in the gym.
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This is Stephi’s fourth year on the Hawkeye. Last year, she created a Hawkeye Snapchat account with the hopes of advancing the organization’s coverage of online and social media reporting.
Prior to serving as Editor, she was the News Editor her junior year and Copy Editor her sophomore year, as well as taking the lead on the Crime and Police beat. During her sophomore year, she attended the JEA National Convention in Washington, D.C. where she learned she wanted to be a journalist. Since then, she’s fallen in love with reporting and reported on many different kinds of stories, from School Board meetings to sexual assault on campus.
Next year, Stephi will be attending the University of Missouri with a major in Journalism. As a career, she hopes to report on either crime, government and politics or education.
