With the help of silly string and water guns, seniors competed against their classmates as they participated in the annual tradition of Senior Assassin with the chance of winning $950.To progress to the next round, participants had to “assassinate” their target by spraying them with a water gun or silly string before their own assassin got them.
Those who did not get their target by the deadline were also eliminated.
While some people were motivated by the pool of money, others took part because the game seemed fun.
“I wanted to be able to run around and shoot people with a water gun,” senior Timmy Alexander said. “This is my childhood dream.”
During the first round, Alexander got one of the most memorable assassinations of the game against senior Chris Fu.
According to Fu, he formed an alliance with Alexander by telling each other who their targets were.
However, Alexander lied to his friend. After school, Fu went to the Indian Valley YMCA with his friends.
He saw Alexander running toward him and tried to seek refuge inside the building.
“He tried to run into the building, but the doors weren’t open. [Fu] just slammed into the glass doors,” Alexander said.
In the second round, senior Peyton Krebs successfully eliminated her target at pictures before junior prom.
“The highlight was probably getting out [senior] Alli Sauerwald at junior prom because it was just so unexpected,” Krebs said. “I thought it was so funny and I couldn’t stop laughing after I shot her.”
Most of the successful assassinations required some level of strategy or planning.
Others decided to come up with more complex plans.
Senior Adelyse D’Arcy decided to get her target with “bait” by colluding with senior Patrick Rother.
She gave Rother information about his target to secure his spot in the next round.
In return, Rother pretended to give up and texted his assassin, D’Arcy’s target, to go to his house and get him.
Before senior Annalise Tyson could spray Rother with silly string, D’Arcy ran out from her hiding spot and got Tyson out.
According to senior Ben Beckett, the game requires determination because there is “a lot of waiting and trying.”
“My recipe for success was a mixture of unwillingness to give up on an assassination and the patience and skill to do what it took to be at the right place at the right time,” Beckett said.
Alexander agrees that patience is important for an assassin’s success.
“You have to wait until you have a perfect time to get them because if you fail, mthen they know you have them and they’re
aware,” Alexander said.
Part of the game involves collecting information about a person, such as their address, the car they drive or the place they  work.
For D’Arcy and senior Katie Eakins, they were able to get information with the mhelp of their “spies.”
“You need to know who you can trust,” Eakins said. “Somebody snitched on where I live and that’s why I got out.”
Since the majority of assassinations took place at people’s houses, families were aware of the conditions of the game.
Some became invested in it. According to D’Arcy, her dad was “so into it” because he checked the Soudy Assassin Instagram account each day to see
the latest videos.
Eakins said that her dad bought her a Super Soaker water gun because it could spray further than silly string.