WEB EXTRA: More than 740 play rock, paper, scissors in bid for world record

By Andrew Bucholtz - Langley Times - May 16, 2008

John Gordon video

Students from Langley Christian Elementary, Middle and High schools descended on the back field at Langley Christian Elementary Friday morning with hopes of entering the Guinness Book of World Records. Their goal was to participate in the world’s largest game of rock, paper, scissors.

Event organizer Steven Kim, a Grade 12 student at Langley Christian High, said he was inspired after stumbling on the existing record while thumbing through the book last year.

“In the fall of 2007, I was looking through the Guinness Book of World Records and I was kind of bored,” he said. “I should have been studying, but I was looking through it and I saw this thing called the biggest game of rock, paper, scissors, and I saw that it was only 412 people. I thought, ‘Oh, the high school has 500 (students), the elementary school has 300... if we get together, we might be able to break that.” Kim said it was easy to convince the school leadership to go along with his idea.

“I’m on pretty good terms with the high school principal, and I just got the other students (on the high school student council) to help because I’m on good terms with them as well,” he said. “We just put that out to the middle school and the elementary school, and they liked the idea.”

Kim said organizing the event itself proved more challenging.

“We got together and put our heads together, and it took us about eight months to get this all sorted out.”

Susan Dick, the principal of the elementary school, said her staff and students were enthusiastic about getting involved.

“Steven Kim, the [high school] student council and the leadership team of Grade 12s came and did a presentation for the teachers, and the teachers were very excited, and it doesn’t take much to excite elementary kids.”

At 9 a.m., the games began with every student matched up against another student from their home room and teachers supervising each match.

The winners played again until home room champions were determined, and the homeroom champions then battled for overall supremacy.

At the end of the day, overall champion Eric Kim, an 18-year-old Grade 11 student at the high school, was given his prize to the delight of the crowd. However, a larger cheer still went up when RCMP Sgt. Rick Koop, one of the independent witnesses to the record attempt, announced that he’d verified the presence and participation of 746 people.

“It sounds like a world record to me,” he said.

Christian Armstrong, a 12-year-old Grade 6 student, said he was excited to be in the event.

“It’s cool because you get to go in the world record book, and you can show friends and everything,” he said.

Documentation from the event must be sent in to Britain before the record becomes official, but Steven Kim said the day proved successful because it united the different campuses.

“It was a great event,” he said. “The elementary, middle and high schools have never been brought to one place together.

Email | Print | Letter to Editor | Share on Facebook

WEB EXTRA: More than 740 play rock, paper, scissors in bid for world record

Most read in your Region

Most read across BC