An annual prank on Washburn’s waterfall gives students and staff a chuckle. On Monday, Nov. 6, 2023, students, faculty and staff came back to find the northeast waterfall filled with bubbles.
James Anguiano, captain of the Washburn University Police Department, and Eric Moss, director of the Facilities Services Department, explained how this prank occurs at least once or twice a year.
Moss and the rest of the facilities team are in charge of keeping the waterfall clean. The team uses a defoamer that can be poured into the water to remove bubbles. Due to the history of this waterfall prank, facilities now keep this defoamer all around campus just in case.
Moss discussed how he and his team felt about the continuous prank.
“We think it’s probably students having fun, it really doesn’t hurt anything. We just go up there with some defoamer, pour it in the water,” Moss said.
No one is sure of who did this to the waterfall, but it’s assumed to be a student playing a prank. Anguiano explained the difficulty of finding the person who may have done this. Students who cause issues such as these are normally reported to Student Life for further consequences.
“I think that’s what people don’t realize that sometimes some pranks could cause damage. Or let’s say facilities is working on a project, and they take two guys off that project to go turn off the fountain and clean it off and stuff like that,” Anguiano said.
Auguiano further explains how students may not think about how long a prank could take to clean up. According to Moss, after pouring the defoamer the bubbles could take two to three days to filter out.
Moss believes that this is simply a case of students enjoying their time in college, which shouldn’t cause for any harsh consequences.
“I don’t think that anyone should get in any serious trouble. You know part of being a student is having fun and like I say, if it’s healthy, we don’t have a problem with it,” Moss said.
According to Moss, the waterfall is the only area where Washburn has had issues as far as student pranks. The waterfall in general tends to be difficult to maintain, but Moss explained that facilities seek to keep the campus clean and beautiful for the students.
Colton Cattoor, sophomore majoring in psychology, mentions his friends in high school put bubbles in the fountain last year.
“I’m from Topeka, and I know it’s usually high schoolers because my friends did it last year,” Cattoor said. “I know last year I was talking to my friends about that and they’re like, ‘yeah, we did it’ and I went ‘what do you mean we did it’ they were like ‘yeah we went, we played in it.’
Cattoor shares he does not believe student life can really do anything about it since it is high school students.
“If it’s a college student, I feel like they could do something but since I know that it’s usually not a college student that does it they can’t really do anything about it,” Cattoor said.
With that, Washburn hasn’t been the only school whose waterfall has been filled with bubbles. According to WIBW, Kansas Wesleyan University fountain was a victim of bubbles being added to their fountain a week before Washburn’s.
Comment if you believe we have a “Waterfall Hitman.”
Edited by Larissa Morgan and Jeremy Ford
Faria • Nov 9, 2023 at 10:46 pm
We have a Waterfall Hitman out there!