High School Students Allowed To Pose With Guns For Yearbook Photos, Board Rules

High school seniors at a central Nebraska school district will be permitted to sport a firearm while posing for their yearbook photos.

The Broken Bow Public School board voted 6-0 to allow students to pack heat when posing for their senior pictures. The vote occurred after some parents pressed for the change, according to Superintendent Mark Sievering.

Hunting, skeet shooting, and trapping are popular in the community, according to Sievering. He said that it’s not unusual for people in the rural area to own firearms. He also noted that the Broken Bow annual Nebraska One Box Pheasant Hunt attracts hunters from all over the country.

“The board I believe felt they wanted to give students who are involved in those kinds of things the opportunity to take a senior picture with their hobby, with their sport, just like anybody with any other hobby or sport,” he said.

In fact, the Broken Bow school district is not the first district in Nebraska to allow students to pose with guns. About half of the districts in that state allow such photos, according to a district official.

The Broken Bow district previously had no policy, one way or the other, about students posing with guns for class photos.

The new policy states that students can pose with objects that illustrate their hobbies, which may include hunting or shooting.

A student posing with a gun is not allowed to point it at the camera or brandish it, according to the policy. The display of the firearm must be “tasteful and appropriate” as well.

School board member Matthew Haumont said he wants the photos to be respectful.

“So we’re going to have to take these as a case-by-case basis,” he said. “But I think that goes with any photo, whether it’s a scantily clad girl or something like that.”

He also said that shooting is part of the town culture, and that there are a number of students who shoot competitively.