High School Yearbook Draws Federal Scrutiny

May 27, 2005 -- -- Identifying students as "most likely to ..." is traditional high school yearbook fare, but the supposed inclination of one Colorado student has drawn the attention of the Secret Service.

After about 100 yearbooks were distributed to the students at Mesa Ridge High School in the Colorado Springs suburb of Widefield earlier this month, somebody complained about the caption under one student's photograph, which reads "Most likely to assassinate President Bush."

The caption not only upset the school administrators, it also prompted an investigation by the Secret Service.

Lon Garner, special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Denver District, said all threats against the president must be investigated.

"That's our mission," he said. "That's what we do."

Widefield School District officials said the Bush caption, along with another that read "Most likely to hack into the FBI files to see what really happened at Roswell," were pranks that should have been caught before the yearbooks were printed, but weren't.

The district did not release the names of the staff or students involved.

School officials asked students to return the yearbooks that had already been handed out, and about 70 were returned.

Staff members used black markers to cover up the words in those and the still-undistributed books, leaving most students at the school with yearbooks with a black mark under the student's picture to cover up the phrase that caught the Secret Service's interest.

"They kind of ruined our yearbook," said Christina Tredway, who just graduated from the school.

District spokesman James Drew said future yearbooks will be triple-checked before printing.

ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver contributed to this report.