By Maria Riegel, Special Writer
Senior Ian Moritz put himself and South Brunswick High School in the Guiness Book of World Records last week by performing the most “high fives” in one hour during a March 16 pep rally.
”It felt awesome,” Ian said after smacking the hands of more than 1,700 classmates. “I’ve been looking forward to the attempt for a while and for it to be accomplished was an awesome feeling.”
According to Ian, Brian Selders in Hoffman Estates, Illinois held the old record of 1,363 high fives. Ian broke that record within a half-hour with 1,739 high fives and with 26 minutes of the hour time allotment to spare.
”Student Council wanted to go above what was expected of us this year and we thought one way we could do that is break a world record,” Ian said.
He said that because the council has been so successful this school year with the school community, the South Brunswick community and the state of New Jersey, their accomplishments motivated them to want to break the record.
Ian said that Guinness, the publisher of the annual compendium of records, had very specific and strict requirements when trying to break a world record, in order to maintain accuracy and integrity.
According to Ian, the council funded the attempt because it was not able to hire notaries from Guinness to vouch for the feat.
”We had to self-adjudicate the record attempt, so we used notaries, stewards, a photographer, many teachers, the school’s video technology program and funding from local businesses,” Ian said.
According to Ian, Pierre’s, The Lockershelf Company, and Selover Funeral Home were only a few of the business sponsors that contributed donations to the world record attempt.
During the pep rally, Ian went through each row of the bleachers to high five each student at attending the pep rally. He and others made sure that students did not move from each section where they were sitting so the record was accurate.
The only students permitted to move from their seats were varsity senior athletes, V.I.P. Students, performers and Student Council members because they were recognized.
SBHS staff strictly enforced this rule.
Throughout the duration of the pep rally, Ian kept in touch with the council members and Principal Timothy Matheney through walkie-talkies to update everyone on how close he was to breaking the record.
Ian said he was initially worried he would not have enough time to high five everyone, but he found that there were not enough people to high five.
”We were expecting our limiting factor to be time but instead, it was people,” Ian said. “I was able to high five everybody in the packed pep rally in a half hour.”
In addition, the students were extremely spirited during the pep rally, which gave confidence to Ian.
According to Ian, his record and footage must now be sent to Guinness and approved for the record to be claimed. He said the school should have an official response from Guinness in a couple of months.
”The record was truly a team effort,” Ian said. “Student Council worked together to plan and execute the event. Mrs. Morris (Student Council advisor) made the record attempt possible. She helped us manage the many projects we were working on.”

