World records come in all shapes and sizes, and now one Spaulding High School student will soon have a wacky record to call his own.
"My friends know what I'm up to. Other people are like, you have your own stapler - that's pretty weird," said Jeffrey White, a seemingly average sophomore at Spaulding High School in Barre. But this 16-year-old will soon be an official world record holder.
"Normally people don't have a world record. It's something you don't really see every day," White said.
"This is just the latest in a long line of really original and interesting things that kids are bringing forward," said Spaulding's Principal, Chris Hennessey.
After completing a science test early, White strung together a small chain of clamped staples. Curious about his new creation, he checked the Guinness World Records and found that the world's longest chain of staples was 422 feet -- held by a man in Bangladesh.
"I thought, Oh, that could be easy enough, so I just worked on it longer and longer until I got my record," White said.
But after five dollars worth of staples and more than three months of work, his mindset is a little different. "My friend in art class was saying how Staples logo was, 'That Was Easy.' Well, I should send a picture to them saying, that wasn't easy," White said.
Every couple of months, all of the students at Spaulding gather together in the auditorium for a school assembly and variety show. White chose this opportunity to show off his achievement Monday.
"Often times it's sort of hidden talents that our students have that you would least expect," Chris Hennessey said.
At 750 feet, 9 inches, White's staple chain is already more than three times longer than a Boeing 747 -- and he eventually hopes to reach 1-thousand feet.
"There's approximately 20,250," said an amused White.
He is now in the process of filing paperwork to validate his staple chain with the world's record authority. He says that once the record is his, he's not giving it up any time soon. "I don't know if I ever will. If someone tries to beat the record, I'll just keep adding more and more," he said.
A soon to be official world record holder who plans on holding on to his quirky record.
