A clever chemistry-loving senior at a high school in the suburbs of Atlanta landed in hot H2O after school officials managed to crack the periodic table code in her yearbook quote.
Here’s the inspiring quote from Mundy’s Mill High School senior Paris Gray:
“When the going gets tough just remember to Barium, Carbon, Potassium, Thorium, Astatine, Arsenic, Sulfur, Uranium, Phosphorus.”
A cursory look at the periodic table reveals that the letter symbols for those nine elements spell out: “Back That Ass Up.”
Gray was sentenced to an in-school suspension and was banned from participating in last Friday’s senior walk, reports Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV.
Infuriated school officials also threatened to prevent Gray, a member of the Beta Club and SADD, and the senior class vice president, from speaking at her upcoming graduation ceremony.
“I think their reaction was beyond what it should have been because nobody understood it,” she told the station.
Gray’s mother Zarinah Woods was a model of parental awesomeness about the incident.
“My first reaction was: you are such a nerd,” she said.
Gray, on the other hand, was crushed.
“It just completely destroyed me, and my mom’s been telling me don’t let it ruin my happiness but it’s like, really taking a big toll,” the senior told WSB.
Thankfully, by Tuesday, cooler administrative heads prevailed. After Gray and her family members met with the principal and the school district superintendent, she learned that she will be able to speak at the graduation after all.
The senior added that the superintendent urged her to “give the best speech ever.”
The Daily Caller is pretty sure it will be one for the ages — and hopes there will be a code involved that no one figures out until it’s over.
Gray probably got the inspiration for her yearbook stunt from the song “Back That Azz Up” by Juvenile (real name: Terius Gray), a rapper who was once a member of a hip-hop group called the Hot Boys. The 1999 song is one of Juvenile’s biggest hits to date.
Fellow Hot Boy Lil Wayne (real name: Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr.) also appears in the song. Wayne’s verse is fairly well-known:
After you back it up and stop
then drop, drop, drop, drop it like it’s hot
Neither Juvenile nor Lil Wayne has weighed in on the hullabaloo. However, this kerfuffle isn’t the first time Lil Wayne’s artistry has been part of a school-related controversy. Back in February, after an eighth-grade English teacher was suspended for assigning the rapper’s raunchy, f-bomb-filled lyrics as required homework, he reminded the world that teachers should not use the rhymes he busts as a teaching tool. (RELATED: Lil Wayne reminds America’s teachers not to use his lyrics in junior high classrooms)
Follow Eric on Twitter and on Facebook, and send education-related story tips to erico@dailycaller.com.
