Each year the top Marathon goal for the student body includes an all school surprise from our two priests. Father John, pastor at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka, and Father Paul, pastor of St. Gabriel’s in Hopkins, love to look through the student suggestion box and choose a new Marathon surprise each year.

Last fall, one suggestion included a stunt with a tarantula spider! Both Father John and Father Paul were intrigued by this idea and had to research this option further. In recent years, students have thrown pie and pizza at the two pastors and made them into ice cream sundaes as the all school surprise. The spider idea seemed to be a unique and much cleaner idea, and therefore worth looking into. Clearly, both priests love to engage and interact with the students at Notre Dame Academy and are very good sports!

Last week after the all school Mass, both Father Paul and Father John surprised the student body at a special assembly where they announced that they were in fact going to eat a tarantula! Enjoy this video of the two of them trying out this new to them cuisine. They dipped the critter in humus and washed it down with water as the students watched and gave all sorts of reactions.

We are always grateful to all who support the Notre Dame Academy Marathon each fall, and we appreciate our priests giving of their time to create once again another amazing prize to motivate our students.