students warned detention for intentional flatulence

ROCKLAND (NEWS CENTER) -- The Village Soup, NEWS CENTER's media partner in the Midcoast, is getting national attention for a simple news story about intentional flatulance.

Reporter Holly Anderson covers the crime beat and other local stories for Village Soup's Knox County online news service. Last Friday, she got a call from a middle school parent who had read the student newsletter, saying students were being warned about possible detention because of intentional flatulence.

It may sound like a joke, but Anderson found some students who said it was for real. They told her it was a contest among 8th grade boys to see who could be the most annoying in class.

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"They verified they knew about the detention, they knew what the kids were doing, it had been an ongoing issue," said Anderson.

After writing the story, Anderson soon learned it had spread across the country, via the Drudge Report. The website was sending readers to the Village Soup website to read the story for themselves. But so many people tried to log on that the website crashed Monday morning.

The problem has now been fixed, and the story has been read by at least 92,000 people.

Click the link on the right to read the Village Soup story.