Chatter quickly increased in Paul Shuirman’s math classroom during lunch on Thursday, Feb. 19, as students began decorating nutria-shaped cookies, completed nutria-themed word searches and watched videos of nutria on the TV.
The Nutria Party, thrown by McNary High School’s Font Club and themed for a semiaquatic rodent native to South America, drew enough students to fill most seats in the room. Club members said they usually take up just one or two tables during their weekly lunch time meetings.
According to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife website, nutria are considered invasive in Oregon. The large, rat-like rodents are most active at night and build burrows in the banks of rivers, sloughs and ponds.
Shuirman said the club was established after one of his students commented on the different fonts he used for text in a math lesson. Previously, the club has advocated to replace the Comic Sans text on the side of local school buses.
Kylee Shelton and Nicole Danner, members of the font club, said the event was inspired by a student-made decoration hung on Shuirman’s wall.
They said the club members posed the idea of adding a nutria, made from hall passes and brown paper, to the classroom wall. After that, the club decided to throw a party themed for the rodent.
In a twist on a traditional party game, one of the event’s activities involved students attempting to “pin” a photo of a donkey onto the tail of nutria artwork on the whiteboard. Like the one already hanging from the classroom’s wall, Shelton made the rodent from hall passes and brown paper.
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