On Monday night, it was up to the students of Emporia Middle School to catch a calculating criminal.
In the most popular Family Math Night ever held in Emporia, the school became the setting for the police drama “CSI: EMS.” Only the students’ math skills could help deduce which of 10 teachers had toilet-papered the office of Assistant Principal Brian Pekarek.
About 220 people signed up to crack the case. Nearly twice that many showed up, including parents.
“Every year we have a different theme, but this one has created a lot of buzz,” said Connie Schrock, a math professor at Emporia State University who coordinated the event.
“It was neat,” said Pekarek, whose office had sheriff’s tape stretched across the main window before being “trashed” with toilet paper and carefully placed clues. “As the kids were leaving today, we were setting up and some of them said ‘What’s going on? Is something wrong with Mr. Pekarek?’ That got a lot of kids interested.”
Family Math Night is just that — a chance for families to have some fun with numbers and logic for the evening. Anything goes, especially when a whodunit is involved. And it didn’t take long for the investigation to turn serious. ...
6:38 p.m.
The investigators are studying a tape outline on the floor. No doubt about it. It’s a polygon.
Janet Weaver and Sadie Cope, both 13, shuffled triangles and squares inside the outline, trying to make them fit. At stake was their first clue in the mystery.
“Maybe it goes right here,” Janet said, making an adjustment.
“Maybe!” Sadie agreed as the shapes slid into place.
“We’re so smart!” Janet said, giggling.
ESU student Racheal Childs passed them the clue. Whoever the culprit was, their favorite equation was the Pythagorean theorem.
“We don’t want it to be Mr. (Derek) Carson,” Sadie said.
“He’s our math teacher,” Janet interjected.
“He’s cool,” Sadie said. Then she remembered a Wildcat emblem she’d noticed at the scene. “But because he likes K-State, he might have done it.”
6:55 p.m.
“Measure it all the way down,” ESU student Lindsay Huser told 14-year-old Stephanie Bryan.
The two were measuring Stephanie’s femur, then her height. The reason? The length of the culprit’s femur may be known. Establish the ratio and you know how tall the culprit has to be.
Once the numbers are crunched, the clue is revealed. The criminal’s femur is somewhere between 18.6 and 19.7 inches. A little on the tall side, then. Hmm.
7:12 p.m.
It’s all starting to add up. Literally. The investigators are once again on the floor of the hallway, this time trying to solve number squares. Each vertical, horizontal and diagonal row has to add up to the answer given.
“So seven, five, one ... and nine! That’s 22,” said Katie Tovar, 14, completing her square.
Or did she? “Now add up this row,” ESU student Megan Hengle said, pointing to the far right.
“Seven, five, four and zero is 16,” Tovar said. Then her eyes rested on the 17 next to the box. One number short. “Aah!”
After shifting a few numbers around, Katie earned her clue. An odd noise had been heard in Pekarek’s office when the crime scene was set up. What did she hear?
7:27 p.m.
Amy Gonzalez and Michelle Perez, both 12, studied the crime scene intently through the hallway window. Had their observational skills found all the clues?
A Lipton tea container. A couple of pop cans. A Papa John’s pizza box. A note written in blue marker. Peculiar.
A boom box against the window played a tune, barely audible.
“Is that opera music?"Michelle asked.
Amy pressed her ear to the window. The beat was steady, catchy ... and definitely modern.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
8:10 p.m.
Cookies are set out in the main hallway. They draw a few larcenous stares.
8:15 p.m.
The clues are gathered, the suspects are assembled and the interrogation begins. Who left the building at what time? What is each suspect’s favorite soft drink?
“Mr Pekarek did it!” one creative theorist suggested. “You sabotaged your own office”
Wrong. Original, but wrong.
Ten students were given the chance to pick the guilty party. Five of them pulled it off. Math teacher Meaghan Jackson stood up to receive the cheers and startled shouts of the audience.
“We looked at the clues and she looked like the one,” Terri Summey said after her 14-year-old daughter, Emma, chose her prize — a CSI game, of course. “The time she left was really what gave it to us.”
No question. They really had her number.