Cackling preteens gleefully smashed a mix of brightly colored raw and hard boiled eggs onto the heads of Park County School District 1 staff on April 6, all for the sake of providing support to a valued teacher and her family. 

Thanks to the egg smashing, jean day for teachers, a hat day and private donations from the community, students raised $2,255.25 for sixth grade social studies teacher Amanda Johnston and her husband. Jeremy Johnston is a prominent historian in the area who has served as the curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum. He has also been fighting Non-Hodgkins lymphoma for the last couple of years. By the end of the year’s first semester Amanda took leave to help her husband, although she still serves as one of the track coaches for the middle school team.

“But since she’s gone to Utah all the time, we’ve got her replacement for a little bit when she’s gone. So it’s always nice to see her practice when she can be there,” Jr. Building Leadership Team member and middle school track athlete Ashley Jacobsen said.

Amanda and Jeremy were unable to attend this year’s event but watched attentively through Facebook, said Amanda, who added that they are appreciative for the community support.

“The Powell Middle School staff is like a part of my family and we are so lucky to have them in our lives,” Amanda said. “My students are the best and I miss them all so much.” 

This is the second year that Powell Middle School’s Jr. Building Leadership Team has organized fundraising for the Johnston family. Last year they raised $1,260; this year the total funds were nearly $1,000 more. IMC Clerk and Jr. BLT coordinator Jill Morrow said that there was even an anonymous donation of $700 “which was a blessing.”

If students managed to raise $1,000 they were able to rope Superintendent Jay Curtis and Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Jason Sleep into the hot seat along with three teachers and their principals. Curtis, who was a popular target, happily egged on the abuse even if he had more yoke than hair on his head when all was said and done. Teachers Joshua Coesens, Juston Carter and Michelle Giltner as well as Principal Kyle Rohrer and Assistant Principal Chanler Buck also volunteered to get their hair dirty for the cause.

Coesens was a popular victim — he was even egged by two of the Jr. BLT members Autumn Allred and Cyrus Snell. They didn’t have a motivation to egg the helpless social studies teacher but it was demanded by their classmates.

“I had my egg in [my] hand and I put it over everyone’s head and I heard a lot of screaming for him so I just cracked it on his head,” Allred said.

The mischievous cracking was well earned for the Jr. BLT students. Librarian and JR. BLT coordinator Denise Catlin  spent many lunch periods organizing the event and selling tickets.

“It’s nice to know that our school even though we are in such a little town, we’re [capable] of doing something like that,” Jacobsen said. “Especially in the middle school, a lot of that stuff doesn’t really happen — it’s more like high school, I feel that they do more of that stuff. The kids care about her and care that she’s doing well and they have enough money to be supported through it.”