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This article was published 8/6/2012 (3035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SUPPLIED PHOTO A pair of students at John Taylor Collegiate pulled the all-in-fun prank Friday morning. A group of soon-to-be grads helped out.

When principal Scott Lockhart pulled into the parking lot at John Taylor Collegiate Friday morning, he rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

Hanging from the school's roof was a giant white tarp with a spray-painted message, School For Sale!!, followed by John Taylor's office phone number. Vice-principal Rod Gilhuly was already there, taking a picture.

"I had a great big smile on my face and I said, 'That's a good one!' " Lockhart said.

The prank was the brainchild of Colin Toews and Brandon Clark, a pair of Grade 12 students who came up with the idea during a lull in a recent math class.

"I thought, 'I want to get out of here so badly it would be great to sell the school so nobody else had to go here,' " Clark said with a laugh. The pair was joined by six other soon-to-be graduates -- Clark's twin brother, Josh, Jordan Lineham, Carson Roziere, Christopher Miller, Matt Beaudin and Alexis Pankiw-Dorge.

They met up at the school late Thursday night with the tarp -- which had been used to cover the Toews' house when it was being reshingled recently -- a 4.8-metre ladder and a couple of cans of spray paint.

The boys covered a surveillance camera with a hockey sock and tape, and climbed up the ladder to the lower level of the school roof. Then they pulled the ladder up to get them to the upper half, where they tied the sign to some pipes.

Pankiw-Dorge, meanwhile, stood watch as the lookout. They hurried home for a few hours of sleep and made sure they were sitting in parked cars by 7 a.m. so they could see Lockhart's reaction.

"It was priceless," Miller said. "Teachers and other students were asking us about it in the hallways. I said we were good friends with Spider-Man. You can only keep a straight face for so long."

Because it was harmless and in good humour, the culprits weren't hauled into the principal's office.

And no, there were no offers.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca