SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
BROWNSVILLE — Russell Elementary celebrated its 110th birthday Thursday with a morning assembly, a hand-decorated Patriot-themed gym, and a formal request that the horse buried somewhere under campus kindly keep its foot on the gas for another century. Superintendent officials reminded students the school is not the brick, the roof, the sand, or the sidewalks — it is the horse, who has now outlasted four roofs, two sidewalks, and every gas pedal metaphor the district has ever deployed.
The horse, posthumously credited with 110 consecutive years of perfect attendance, received a commemorative plaque placed optimistically above the fourth-grade flowerbed, which is the closest anyone wants to get to confirming anything. District officials noted the horse never once took a sick day, never asked for a raise, and scored a solid 94 on the STAAR in 1916, back when the test was just a man asking a horse to count.
‘Do Not Take Your Foot Off the Gas,’ District Tells Horse That Has No Feet Left
The centerpiece of the assembly was a rousing speech urging the deceased equine not to get complacent after the school’s 94 STAAR score and fresh A rating. “A rating is not a finish line,” administrators told the horse, staring meaningfully at a patch of grass near the swing set. “Los Viejitos didn’t dance in the Children’s Parade for 40 years so you could coast, señor.”
The horse, who predates Charro Days itself and is believed to be the only Russell employee who remembers when Los Viejitos were just Los Muchachos, could not be reached for comment but was reportedly “taking it one century at a time.”
Human Staff Celebrate Being Second-Best Tenure on Campus
Veteran educators took the news graciously. One 32-year teacher admitted she still can’t compete. “I’ve got 32 years in and I still sub when they call,” she said. “That horse has 110 and hasn’t produced a single lesson plan. Honestly, humbling.” A former principal from 1995 to 1998 returned just to retell the legend at the same microphone, confirming that in her day the horse was already senior staff and got first pick of the parking spots, technically all of them, technically forever.
District officials confirmed the horse will remain on the payroll in spirit, ineligible for TRS, and exempt from T-TESS observations because walking across its office would violate several laws. At press time, the school had asked the horse to please, whenever convenient, indicate which side of the cafeteria it’s actually on, because the fifth graders have a bet going.
