PF students vandalize own field

The Post Falls mayor was incredulous.

“Who would have ever thought it was our own youth?” Mayor Clay Larkin said in an e-mail following Wednesday’s announcement that Post Falls High students – not students from rival Timberlake High – had vandalized the Post Falls football field last week.

Six Post Falls seniors admitted to police this week that they had spray-painted the school’s football field using blue and gold paint, Timberlake’s school colors. The vandalism took place in the early morning hours Friday, the same day Post Falls football players were preparing for their homecoming game against the Timberlake Tigers.

That night Post Falls beat Timberlake 47-0.

“I was fired up. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything. I was mad,” Post Falls’ Nick Mehalechko told The Spokesman-Review after Friday’s victory.

The seniors who admitted to Friday’s vandalism told police they were trying to “fire up the Post Falls football team for their homecoming game” and that it was also a senior prank. Police said the teens used two-way radios and posted lookouts as they painted the field.

Lakeland Superintendent Chuck Kinsey said the district immediately launched an investigation at Timberlake High, trying to find the culprits who painted Post Falls’ field.

“Certainly Timberlake was embarrassed by it,” Kinsey said. “We were embarrassed by it as a district. When you’re being blamed for that type of vandalism and it’s associated with your school, it’s embarrassing.

“Post Falls is embarrassed now that it was their students who took part in it.”

Kinsey said there have always been pranks between rival schools, but the instances have been “fairly limited.”

“There are always going to be some students who will make some bad judgments,” he said.

Post Falls Police Lt. Greg McLean said they often see senior pranks, but it’s not often that the blame is passed off on another school in an attempt “to get people riled up.”

“It’s caused quite the stir-up,” McLean said.

About $1,000 damage was reported. Spray paint marked the goal posts, sideline markers and “various vulgar comments about the Post Falls Trojans team” were painted on the football field, according to police.

The students involved face misdemeanor charges of malicious injury to property, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, McLean said.

Post Falls Principal John Billetz said the school also had taken disciplinary action against the students.

Billetz said something about the vandalism seemed fishy from the get-go.

“This was the first time we played Timberlake in anything,” Billetz said. “We didn’t have a relationship of any sort with them, positive or negative.”

He said he was proud of his players for not retaliating against Timberlake. He said students are disappointed, though, to learn that some of their classmates had vandalized their own field.

“If there is a silver lining,” Billetz said, “it’s that the kids didn’t do it because they didn’t like Post Falls or they were trying to get at the football team. The true intent really was to fire up the football team. That’s better than somebody saying ‘We hate Post Falls and that’s why we did it.’ “