Gobble Games return to Eastview Middle School

The Gobble Games returned to Eastview Middle School in Bartlett Tuesday and sent seventh- and eighth-graders home for Thanksgiving with games, prizes and frozen poultry.

Sixty students with exemplary behavior during the school year competed in a tug-of-war game, 30 against 30. The winning team continued to a scooter competition. Subsequent winners advanced to corn shucking, a turkey trot and then to the final competition, "turkey dressing."

Three students remained. Each picked a teacher, were given a roll of toilet paper and raced against each other to finish the roll first and place a turkey headband on the teacher's head. Seventh-grader Liam Gallagher, 13, and seventh-grade math teacher Kirsten Pullman won the contest, rapidly depleting the tissue roll as he ran circles around her while she spun in the opposite direction. Liam said he thought of the strategy on the spot. Pullman isn't his teacher, but Liam said he picked her because, "She looked athletic." He took home a frozen turkey for first place. Second place earned a frozen chicken and third place a frozen Cornish hen.

Social studies teacher Matt Dunphy was a referee for the second year.

"It's a good way to kick off the holidays. The kids ... it's hard to keep their focus in the classroom, so this is a kind of a nice end of the week, go enjoy yourselves and let's come back refreshed," Dunphy said.

"And it's a good way to recognize the kids that are doing what they're supposed to and not getting referrals. It's a good reward."