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My Favorite Prank

Alumni Survey

The best one I remember was pulled by some guys on second floor Marian. The victim was Ruth Oswald ’82. They stayed up all night on a Saturday, popping popcorn, and while Ruth was at Mass, they poured all of it into her room on first floor. You had to swim through it!  

Suzanne Scharle ’83

If you look at Marian Hall from one side, it appears to be a two-story building, but from the Trinity side, it is a full three stories. People would get on the window ledge on the safe side and creep along to the Trinity side—now one story off the ground. Imagine hearing a tapping noise on your second-story window at night only to open up the curtains and find someone’s face plastered to the window!

Julia (Norton ’79) Delcompare 

We used to sneak into my Theta Phi Alpha sisters’ rooms and switch every piece of furniture to the other side of the room or turn it upside down. Then we would hide in the dryers so they couldn’t find us.   

Tammy (Frederick ’83) Laza

A sorority sister and I hung a dead fish from the ceiling in the second-floor bathroom of the dorm.  It was a lovely smell to wake up to.  It was during pledge time and seemed fitting for the upperclassmen to have to endure some of our “fun.”

Gracie (Kniola ’72) Landrum 

A friend drove me back to Steubenville on his way to University of Dayton the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1972. The following morning, with no one still around, we went down the hall to take showers.  Rich finished before I did, taking my towel, robe, and slippers with him! I had no choice but to walk down the hall to my room bare and soaking wet. When I went into my room, the windows were wide open! The temperature was a windy 30-some degrees. Those were the coldest 10 seconds of my entire life! 

Michael J. Quinn ’73

It was spring of 1969. The guys lived in the St. Francis dorm, and we gals in Marian Hall. We women hosted an open house, and the “fellas” were invited to visit for the day. Toward the end of the event—maybe 8:00 p.m.—John and Dan were in our room and one of us said, “What if you guys didn’t leave and just spent the night here on the floor under our beds? Wouldn’t that be cool?” And, thus, the plot was hatched. 

The scariest part of the next 10 hours was when our girlfriends stopped in just before bedtime to recap the day. I was seated at my desk wearing a long robe, concealing Dan who was tucked away under the desk holding his knees up to his chin! My roomie, Suzanne Walsh, was lounging on her bed trying to keep from giggling and spilling the beans, as I wondered out loud if Dan and John enjoyed their visit.

After our hallmates left, Dan uncurled himself and crawled beneath my bed. John was already under Suzanne’s. We set the alarm for daybreak and slept fitfully. Our plan for getting the guys out of the dorm the next morning: disguise them in granny nightgowns to look like girls and spirit them out the basement door! That way, as they scampered up the hill toward St. Francis Hall they wouldn’t be identified if anyone saw them.  One of them even wore Barb Zona’s curler bonnet!

We never got caught!

Suzanne (Walsh ’72) Rettew and Sasha (Marsha Doran ’73) ZeBryk 

Originally published in the Autumn 2008 Baronette newsletter.