A small pile of cash and gift cards has been building for months on the back left table in English and social science teacher Kellie Oydna’s classroom. As of Wednesday, June 1, 2022, there is, with a very liberal estimate, a total of $95.11 including an assorted six flags tokens and an orange housed in a Krispy Kreme donuts workers hat.

On March 24th Sienna Barker (11) in Mrs. Oydna’s period 2 class was walking to school worrying about her APUSH quarter 3 finals when she saw a penny on the ground and an idea hit her.

“I remembered the saying: ‘find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck,’” Barker said. “So I brought the penny with me to school hoping it would help me with my test. I decided to set it on the desk and when I came back the next day it was still there. And a few days later there were coins and dollars and gift cards beside it.”

In Mrs. Oydnas’s period 4 class Brad Brady (11), Melody Fang (11), Lindsay Madigan (11), and Adrian Stroyer (11) walked into their last class of finals day, March 25th; they had a test on a chapter of their history book.

Coincidentally, earlier that day, Madigan had come across a penny of her own and followed the same superstitiously followed the same path as Barker. She decided to donate her penny to the pile in hopes that it would make her quarter 3 finals go well And lo and behold, Madigan got her best score of the semester that day.

In the coming days, these two pennies led to more coins appearing on the table which prompted the group to donate more to the pile. On some days, the students would find that whole dollar bills and gift cards had been added to the pile. 

“In the beginning, we thought we were the only ones adding to the pile, but it was really easy to see that it wasn’t just us because it was getting so big,” Brady said.

While this grand amount of money accumulating in the pile might seem like a tempting prize for anyone to take, Brady says that doesn’t happen because it would take away from the spirit of it. 

“Although it is a joke, the other purpose of the pile is to try to build a  mutual unspoken trust between the classes,” Brady said.

With the school year winding down, the next question is what the group will do with all that money at the end of the school year. They could splurge on a celebration or donate it to a worthy cause. In the end, the group has decided to honor the steward of the mysterious pile, Oydna, as she has put up with the pile for several months. They have decided to brighten Oydna’s day with a bouquet of flowers.

Westview is a highly pressured academic school where people sometimes lose the idea that high school is not just for growing intellectually, it’s also about having fun with some people you care about at a square beige table.

“In high school, you’re not really going to remember the exact grade you got on a test,” Barker said, “but you will remember the unique experiences you shared with your class along the way.”