Luverne Homecoming King Mark Robinson was surrounded by three friends intent on unscrewing the decorative nut on top of the scepter he received during the coronation ceremony.
The mom voice in me told me to see what shenanigans these teenagers were up to.
I quickly snapped a photo of the foursome, because you never know if the moment would have story significance.
A day later I began pulling at that story thread after conferring with a half dozen people who revealed a mystery surrounding the insides of the scepter.
Inside the scepter’s silver bulb were five $1 bills. Written individually on four of the dollars were the previous Homecoming king names along with one blank bill.
Mark had added his dollar with his name and year of crowning. Already in the scepter were dollars that read “Conner Crabtree 2014,” “Cole Bosch 2015” and “Dylan Thorson 2016.”
Could the blank dollar be that of 2013 Homecoming king Brent Thompson?
I tugged at the thread some more by opening the dialogue with the mothers of the former kings.
Three of the four past kings’ moms were unaware of the dollars in the scepter.
I pulled harder at the thread starting with the 2013 king.
Brent said, “I can’t remember doing that.” So the blank dollar was not his.
A relayed discussion from Conner Crabtree to his mother to me revealed he was the one who placed the initial two dollar bills in the scepter.
It appears that a crowned king can have possession of the scepter until the end of Homecoming Week. His mom said Conner took the scepter on an adventure of attending several Homecoming events, eventually ending with a stop at Buffalo Wild Wings in Sioux Falls.
That’s where the scepter’s nut came loose and the top half of the sphere popped off. It was empty inside.
“I am going to put a dollar in there to see if anyone ever finds it,” he said last week.
He said he didn’t sign the money with his name, however.
Cole Bosch didn’t sign his dollar either, according to his mother, who learned about the tradition after last week’s coronation.
Cole’s mom said kings were to take one dollar out and put other one in before closing the scepter until the following year.
“I should have taken a dollar out and put in four quarters,” Cole joked while telling the tale to his mom.
The final thread led to last year’s king Dylan Thorson, and the seams began to show what’s underneath the mystery of the scepter.
“I did write the names,” Dylan told me directly.
He also confirmed that the same fine-tipped black marker was used to write three of the four names. The printing also seemed similar.
Dylan wrote the names on the dollars as a way to preserve a little school history.
“It’s kind of cool we have something like that to tie us all together,” Dylan summed up in the phone conversation.
It’s unknown if future kings will follow the tradition by opening the scepter and enclosing a dollar with their name written on it.
Even though it’s been only a four-year tradition, it was a story thread worth following.