Is Phil McCraken here? Pranksters register a list of joke names to speak at Virginia School Board meeting
- The Henrico School Board was pranked on Thursday when someone registered a list of joke names to be called to speak at the public meeting
- Board member Reverend Dr. Roscoe D. Cooper III unknowingly listed off several fake names including ‘Phil McCraken’, ‘Suck Mahdick’, and ‘Ophelia McCaulk’
- The moment was caught on camera and has since gone viral with many comparing the gag to Bart Simpson’s popular prank calls
- Cooper has joined in on the joke admitting on Twitter that ‘those names totally went over my head’
A Virginia School Board was pranked during Thursday’s meeting when someone registered a list of fake and hilarious names to be called for public comment.
Video of the Henrico School Board meeting shows board member Reverend Dr. Roscoe D. Cooper III calling a list of supposed citizens who signed up to speak at the meeting.
Names such as ‘Phil McCraken’, ‘Suck Mahdick’, ‘Ophelia McCaulk’, ‘Eileen Dover’, ‘Don Kedick’ and ‘Wayne Kerr’ are called during a minute clip of the public meeting in which no one comes to the podium.
Many compared the prank to Bart Simpson’s popular gag calling Moe’s Tavern asking to speak with similar names such as ‘Seymour Butz’, ‘Al Coholic’, and ‘Oliver Klozoff.’
Only one person actually spoke during the meeting, which had lasted more than three hours before the prank names where called, according to The Henrico Citizen.
Video of the Virginia School Board meeting shows board member Reverend Dr. Roscoe D. Cooper III calling a list of joke names to speak
No one steps up to the podium as Cooper continues reading names such as ‘Phil McCraken’
Cooper has since acknowledged prank sharing on Twitter that it ‘totally went over my head’
Once the hilarious clip was posted online, viewers caught on to the joke names and relished in Cooper’s oblivious delivery.
A tweet of the funny video has gathered 12.2 million views and 478.6 thousand likes.
The Rising Mount Zion Baptist Church and newly elected school board member replied to the video on Twitter admitting: ‘I’ve laughed since, but those names totally went over my head. Had no clue they weren’t legit.’
He wrote that since the video has gone viral ‘inboxes are getting slammed.’
Another school board member admitted she hadn’t realized the names were jokes.
Marcie Shea tweeted: ‘I was so consumed with the heaviness of the meeting agenda, I was just relieved to have a shorter public forum and don’t notice. However, I’ve definitely gotten a good laugh since then.’
DailyMail.com reached out to Cooper for a comment.
Although the joke was not acknowledged during the meeting, it appears to have become a welcome moment in the midst of the serious discussions of covid, a return to school, transportation, the school resource officer program, and the potential for pre-Labor Day start times in coming years.
Public school board meetings have become a place of heated debate focusing on issues such as covid mandates and Critical Race Theory.
The newly-elected Henrico School Board member has since joined in on the laughs
Last week an unidentified woman who refused to put her mask back on at a school board meeting in Texas was carried out of the building in her chair by police.
The woman was wearing her mask when she arrived at the Northside Independent School District Board of Trustees meeting, district spokesman Barry Perez told KSAT.
But at some point she removed it and refused to put it back on when asked by district officials and then police.
That same week another Texas school board meeting got out of hand when a father bared his thoughts on mask mandates during a Dripping Springs School District meeting, stripping down to his underwear in defense of the mandates.
The meeting in Dripping Springs was intended as an agenda review ahead of the regular board meeting next week, but quickly turned into a public debate about masking mandates in schools.
James Akers, 58, spoke during the public forum at the beginning of the meeting Monday listing examples of other inconveniences that he endures for the safety and comfort of others as he undressed down to his underwear.