I know this is a little late to be commenting on this, but i was one of the kids in the accident. Yes, someone was chasing us. No, it wasn't the home owner we were tping. Everyone is fine though some of our injuries are still hurting us. My broken leg still isn't fully healed, but I am walking now. I would have to say that packing 7 kids in the car was irresponsible on our part, but that person (whoever they were) shouldn't have chased us to freak us out. Scaring an inexperienced driver in a car is asking for something bad to happen. I'm happy to be alive, and i'm sad to say that this won't be something i'll ever be able to forget. anything can happen to anyone; i don't feel like it was anyone's fault.

A) I never said that the accident in 1983 was during homecoming activities...
B) In terms of the way and time of their death I stand corrected and appologize, but before we left work at Northwestern Military and Naval Academy that day we were told about the accident and the details given us were those I stated below. Again, I stand corrected.

Bravo PS
There will also be asing in my yard. As for the students injured in the recent crash my heart goes out to them and there families. At a time like this they need all the support they can get. Shame on those pointing fingers. I will keep all of the families in my prayers and I will also pray for those who only have time to accuse and condem.

Show me the perfect school that does not do things during Homecoming? I listen to the older group talk about what they use to do doing homecoming and yes we laugh, but the fact is toilet paper is not that bad. I will put a sign in my yard next year welcoming the tradition. The fact that the kids are not doing drugs, drinking alchol, or having unsafe sex while they are running around throwing a few rolls in a tree should be comforting. With all the other forms of activity that kids are known to par take tping is the least. As far as the accident involving our students, IF YOU were not there when it happened, IF YOU were not there after it happened, and IF YOU were not there at the hospital while they were getting help then DO NOT presume you know what happened.

teacher extraordinaire
You need to get your facts straight and not rewrite history to suite your own intrests as you have been known to do in the past. The accident you are speaking of happened the Thursday of Homecomming. The kids were not out joy riding they were returning home from school. The accident happened shortly after 3:00 and they did not drive under a dump truck they were hit by a dump truck owned by a local excavating company (personal friends of one of the boys in the car). It was never determined which vehical was over the center line and no one I repeat no one was decapitated. One of the boys was in the front seat the other was in the back seat. One of the boys died on the side of the road after one and a half hours of recessitation failed. The other young man died in the ambulance in front of the Standard Station in Williams Bay. In my professional opinion as a RN I find it hard to believe that either of the boys could have lived that long without a head. As a sister of one of the boys I take your comments as insulting, offencive, and again your never ending attempt to rewrite history to bolster your opinion. Keep it to yourself.

If I was the homeowner, I would take legal action against all of you who are claiming he chased the kids who were TPing his house.

*Do not libel anyone. Libel is writing something false about someone that damages that person's reputation.*

Right from the rules of the blog. I'm sure the homeowners won't pursue legal action against those slandering and libeling them because of the good people that they are, but I sure would. Defamation of character anyone? By saying the homeowners were chasing the kids, you're also saying that they left when the accident happened because they weren't at the scene when authorities arrived. These assaults on their character are disgusting and I hope they file suit against people doing it.

Teacher ex- You have had a great deal more experience with OTHER peoples children and NOT your own so you cannot speak from ANY experience on raising them, yet you have all kinds of opinions on how to do that. Hmmm... dont see how thats possible.

FrequentReader: No update on these students' conditions. Even if the Gazette were to call the hospitals at which they were earlier this week, the hospitals wouldn't tell us anything because they are minors (unless the parents were there to consent to a release of their condition). Sorry to keep you waiting.
Kayla Bunge
Reporter

1) I never said toilet paper hurt siding...the students in my case threw canned goods at steel siding leaving dents

2) Toilet paper does not dissolve! You have to go out and rake it up and hope and pray that the stuff in the trees comes down before you get charged by the HOA or city for having a house that looks like hell.

3) My biggest point is still wasted on most of you....why not teach these kids to use the money, time and resources wasted on TPing to HELP someone instead of making more work for them????

Any updates on these kids conditions would be greatly appreciated. I have kept them and their families in my thoughts and prayers since it happened? Does anyone know the status of these children?

TeacherExtrodanaire- it is very unfortunate that you as an assumed homeowner are terrified of getting toilet paper on your home. You and any other citizen afraid of this might want to consider seeing a psychiatrist.

Zoom- siding getting damaged by biodegradable toiletpaper..seriously..maybe you need to go back to high school...maybe you can learn that toilet paper dissolves..

1) I am sorry you feel I am the uncompassionate one. I want your children to be valued, productive members of society...you keep concerning yourselves with their happiness. 2) I am single, so therefore, I do not have biological children of my own. But after 26 years of teaching, I have experienced a great deal more adolecent behavior than you have...the lack of prefrontal lobe maturity will keep most of these teens from making wise decisions when not supervised. I meant no harm. I continue to pray for the healing and reunification of these families.

its crazy to see how people on here are pointing fingers and just blaming this on TPing. i know cobble stone rode. it pretty much isnt even safe to drive down during the day. and i know all those kids that were in the accident. they have been through so much emotionally and physically. and i know that for a fact. its not easy to see a friend in pain. its not easy to hear about a terrible ACCIDENT that they were in. and then not know if there alive. it effected our school so much. it rocked every students world the night we all found out. even if you knew one of them or all of them or none. we just held each other a little closer. i could understand how upset every one would be if they were drinking or doing drugs.. but the thing is they were just TPing. yes i know lots of people dont agree with it. but it was just clean fun. they could of been doing much worse. and in another story about this on here people were pointing fingers at the parents. there parents are some of the most caring people i know. could you imagine being a parent being at home everything being fine. and then getting a phone call saying your kids just been in an accident. could you imagine trying to find out if there okay or how it happened. they probably blamed themselves. and pondered on what they could of done to of prevented this.
im so over reading these blogs and seeing how rude people can be. im just glad every one is going to be okay. they are going through alot of pain right now. but thank god they will be okay. im just THANKFUL!

Way to go frequent reader! i completely agree

I think many bloggers have forgotten the point of this story -- 7 teenagers which in my opinion and many others, still kids!(whether innocent or guilty of a heinous crime) were involved in a horrific accident that will forever change not only their lives, but lives of many CARING people in their community. Can everyone just take a step back and stop pointing fingers and placing blame? Take a moment and remember these kids and their families and the devastation they are going trhough right now. As angry as everyone wants to be, it isn't necessarily the tp'ing or the chasing that should be the topic of discussion. It should be everyone, including those who think tp'ing is the most vicious of crimes, praying for the full recovery of these kids injured in an accident that has affected so many people. Believe me, they will not forget will happened, they will pay for what happened for a very long time. Even if the law doesn't press charges, these kids have learned a hard lesson. A lesson that I would not wish on anyone and neither should any of you. To all the families of the children involved, may God be with you and ensure all of you heal, not only physically, but emotionally.

Teacher Extraodinaire - I REALLY hope you are not my childs teacher with your kind of uncompassionate attitude. You obviously dont have kids of your own and if you do, I feel sorry for them.

20 months online...2000+ posts. Pretty much says it all.

SG-So sorry your family and son have to go through this experience. You and all families involved are in my thoughts and prayers. Sorry you also have to put up with insensitive people on this blog. Just be aware they are in the minority and most of us in your community suport you all.

Why is it wrong for a neighbor or homeowner to pursue someone out causing trouble in the neighborhood. If it was just harmless activities that everyone should accept, why did the kids run..you conditioned the kids to run away and not stop, admit and help clean up the mess....Let's get to the point where the paper stays on the shelf for people to use in the bathroom. Let's get to the point where the money and time wasted is used in the community to help elderly or poor people prepare their homes for winter. Rake 10 lawns, pay toward a family's gas bill, feed lunch at a homeless shelter, help your church or school. Why don't we expect more from these leaders instead of "we all did it", no we didn't...! Homecoming was designed as a reason for alumni to come back, visit and serve as role models for the current students...it was never meant as a reason for students to cause waste, heartache and millions of dollars of damage across the country every year...

"Too bad the other "adult" involved won't step up."

Step up and do what? The homeowner had every right to follow the car of people (people old enough to drive aren't really "kids", are they) and get a license plate number, etc. Blaming the home owner for someone else crashing their car is laughable.

SG - sorry to hear about your son's broken back. It's a horrible thing for him and for you to go through, and I hope he recovers fully.

Whining? Easy to say from that side of the keyboard.

I can see hollering at someone, or chasing them off your property, but to chase a carload of kids down a country backroad at night for even a serious crime like TP'ing is, at the very least. irresponsible. As were the actions of the kids. What the homeowner did was compound the stupidity. Threatening violence? You were there and saw that wasn't the case, right? Guess they should have waited until he hit one of them, right?

And for your reference, my son accepts the responsibiity completely. Anytime the County wants to ticket him for this-even for the "possible damage to the siding", they are welcome to. Too bad the other "adult" involved won't step up. Or is that you?

Your kid was TP'ing a house (which can cause damage to siding, btw), and you're blaming the homeowner for chasing them? In order to be chased, you have to run. Unless that homeowner was threatening violence, the real problem is that your kid got caught doing something ILLEGAL, not that they were being "chased". Stop whining on a public blog, and go teach your kid to be responsible for his actions.

This whole thing is indicative of how our society is closing off fairly harmless avenues of youthful steam-releasing. The harder we push to eliminate things like TP'ing, the more our kids will be pushed to more secretive-and more harmful-hijinx.

As to the comment by the police official that there is "no credible evidence" that the kids were being chased, all I can say is that on the night of the accident, as I was standing next to my sons gurney in the ER, all he could tell me was that they had been chased from the area of the TP'ed house by a neighbor, and that his last memory before hitting the tree was of the neighbors car behind them.

Whether the car was being actively pursued, or the driver merely thought he was being pursued is, at this point, irrelevant. The neighbor who decided he needed to chase these kids was, in fact, a major factor in causing this accident and as such, I would encourage him to go to the County Sheriff and explain himself.

MY son is in the hospital with a broken back, as well as some lesser injuries...toilet-papering, it's a capitol offense in Walworth County now.

As a teacher who has been out supervising students cleaning up wet toilet paper from trees and yards, I resent people just accepting this as status quo being good enough forever. We could have been in class learning, but we were out making good on the stupidity of wasting paper products, scaring homeowners and deluding students into believing that even though such an act is illegal in most jurisdictions, as long as people don't get hurt, allow it to happen. We actually had a home burn down when the toilet paper touched live electric wires...thank the Lord no one was home. I feel bad for the students who got hurt, but they were involved in illegal, unwelcome activities. I remember the 1983-84 school year when four students left BigFoot on a joy ride down S.Shore Dr. and drove up under a dumptruck, decapitating the boys in the front and forever affecting their dates in the back. Why don't we applaude the safe, boring activities...If I had ever done such a thing my parents made sure we knew that we would never get bailed out...Mr. "Old Fart" above perpetuates the Good Old Boys clubs that fill school ventilation systems with pig manure, shaving cream on the gym floor, throw canned goods at house siding, etc. What happened to doing the right thing? I will pray for recovery and that this will lead these future leaders to being the role models for their classmates.

Why would all students be tested for drugs and alcohol?

Just an update..Karl Springhorn is in a Madison Hospital. He had to have surgery on his spine..

Nothing us old farts didn't do when we were young.
Not the most pleasant to clean up, but not all that bad either.
Best wishes to all involved, and hope they heal soon and completely. They have learned a lesson the hard way.