On Wednesday, May 20, instead of taking third and fourth hour finals as they had expected, students were met with hallways filled with darkness. Upon entering the school building, students were ushered to the library, cafeteria, or the main hall as KC Power and Light crews worked to fix the electricity. Students chattered excitedly as they awaited any piece of news as to what would happen next.

“It was just a lot of not knowing what was going on. Everybody was just like, ‘what happened.’ I sat in the main hallway while the people worked on the electricity for an hour and a half,” sophomore Crimson Barker said.

The true cause of the power outage turned out to be a raccoon chewing on electrical wires, and had nothing to do with Wednesday’s stormy weather, as some students have speculated.

As a result of the blackout, students were officially dismissed at about 9:10. Buses had to return to the school to take bus riders home, and, to the distress of many students, the projected schedule for finals week had to be changed.

Rather than taking third and fourth hour finals on Wednesday, fifth and sixth on Thursday, and seventh on Friday, as had been initially scheduled, students had to take their third, fourth, and fifth hour finals on Thursday, and their sixth and seventh hour finals on Friday.

Despite the unexpected day off, however, this schedule change did some students more harm than good.

“It did [disrupt my week,]” Barker said. “I had to take four finals today because I can’t come to school tomorrow because I have state. So instead of having three finals today and two tomorrow, I have four today. It totally ruined the schedule.”

Other students rejoiced in the opportunity to have an extra day off. Sophomore Maddie McAvoy, who was held in the library, did not mind the incident in the least.

“I thought [the power outage] was fun, because then we didn’t have to do finals. I just sat there and talked to my friends,” McAvoy said.

The fun of the blackout ended with Wednesday, however, and students will continue with finals week and finish the school year on Friday.