[ back ]
PEQUANNOCK - Freshmen beatings continue
(This article was originally published last year, but with the same tradition going on again this year, it seems appropriate to republish.)
PEQUANNOCK – A bizarre youth ritual is underway in Pequannock Township as the school year winds down. Next year’s high school seniors are spanking the buttocks of next year’s freshmen as part of a hazing tradition.
The tradition has waxed and waned in popularity over the years, and nobody really knows how long it’s gone on – estimates range from one decade to several.
Suburban Trends’ own Tim Fox, an alumnus of the Pequannock Township school district, recalls how during the last days of the school year, eighth graders have to be on the lookout around town for high school juniors with paddles in hand. The paddles even have holes in them to reduce wind resistance during a swing, and the Pequannock police have confiscated some over the years.
This year, at least one hazing incident has already been reported, and township and school officials are seeking to prevent future occurrences. At the Holy Spirit School Carnival last month, at least two separate paddling incidences occurred.
Junior boys took eighth grade boys away from the carnival to nearby Washington Park, where the older boys paddled the younger. Junior girls also did the same thing to eighth grade girls, said Lt. Dan Dooley of the township police.
No formal complaints have been filed for these incidences, but officials are aware of them and seeking to clamp down on the practice, he said.
Reports have also come in of “S-L-U-T” being written in marker on girls’ foreheads.
Fox recalled the hazing ritual with a wry grin. He said he never took part in it as either a spanker or spankee, but was aware of it and was all in good fun, though some victims winced when they sat. Typically, he said, eighth graders become targets if they have siblings in the high school, or plan on going out for a team.
Schools Superintendent Dr. Larrie Reynolds said that admonishments about the practice have been issued in the high school, while warnings have been issued in the middle school. Eighth graders have been instructed not to tolerate the hazing ritual, and to report any incidences of it that they know of.
“The school district has a hazing policy that basically is pretty self explanatory that says that high school students, or really any students that are involved in hurting other people or threatening other kids or involving themselves in areas where other people feel intimidated or demeaned, we take a very dim view of,” said Reynolds.
The superintendent added that the township police are on a “special alert” to prevent hazing. He said that the school district has taken “appropriate actions” against the students involved in the Holy Spirit incident.
“The high school really has no bearing on this because it’s being done outside of the high school,” said Lt. Dooley. "Paddling, in this town, has gone on for years."
Dooley said that enforcement against the practice is difficult because paddled eighth graders often choose not to report it for fear of further spankings or worse.
“It's not that easy to investigate because the younger kids don't want to talk because they don't want the crap knocked out of them,” Dooley said.
Still, he added that the police have unnamed informants about the practice and he expects the ritual to die down this year, as it has in others, now that the police are involved. The police department is prepared to issue assault charges, he said.
“If we get reports of it and come across anyone with the paddles, and if any of the kids who get paddled file a report, there’s going to be criminal charges,” Dooley warned.
Last year, the school resource officer “made an impression on the kids and the school took a good stance on it,” Dooley said. “Unfortunately, this year it has started up again a little bit, but it is not a big problem.”
This hazing ritual mirrors the plot of the cult coming-of-age 1993 marijuana movie “Dazed and Confused,” which is all about the night after the last day of school in Austin, TX, 1976, when the new seniors hunt for new freshmen, paddle them, and then ultimately accept them into their beer parties in the woods. None of the township officials who spoke to Suburban Trends for this article have seen the movie, or know if the ritual in Pequannock predates it.
[ back ]
