Serial Plumbing Vandal Evades Capture At Colorado High School

I’m not saying it’s a slow news day – except, yes I am, because it is. Aside from talking about the weather, there’s just not that much going on out there today. But I found this newsworthy tidbit coming out of Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins for you instead.

There’s a few reasons it’s noteworthy. First and foremost because of what the headline says. Apparently there’s a vandal on the loose at Fossil that’s going around damaging the plumbing, forcing the administration to ultimately shut down a girls’ bathroom in a high traffic area of the school, near the offices and the science wing.

The head custodian for the school says this is not the first time it’s happened and in fact, it’s already happened six times this year in various bathrooms around the school, leading some to speculate there’s a serial vandal on the loose.

The repeated damage to this bathroom in particular has forced the school to close it down. All of that is a huge bummer and super frustrating for the students and staff who use it as a matter of convenience in that area of the school. But there’s another noteworthy tidbit to this story.

I thought the story was very well written, by (I assume) a student at Fossil named Nickolas Gutierrez. Coming across the story online, in fact, led me to an entire offering of stories like it on their website for Etched In Stone News, the official publication of Fossil Ridge High School.

Why, you ask, is someone on the radio in Northern Colorado for the last 20+ years promoting a high school newspaper’s website?

Because I was one of them back when I was in high school, many years ago at Ponderosa High School down in Parker, and I absolutely loved it. We didn’t have a Mustang Express website for someone on the radio to tell people about, so nobody ever talked about us. To be fair, the internet hadn’t really been invented yet. But I was proud of the work we did, and I think the work they’re doing at Fossil is great, and deserves some recognition.

Kudos, Nickolas, and kudos to the staff of the Etched In Stone News. Keep up the solid reporting!