Yearbook Pranksters Most Likely to Be Fined or Arrested

June 9, 2013— -- High school officials and students have been shocked to open their yearbooks to find names changed to insults or crude epithets, and one school discovered a student had exposed himself in a photo.

The yearbook pranks are an annual problem for schools and yearbook publishers.

"Unfortunately, we see a handful of yearbook pranks every year," Jill Teut, the corporate communications manager for the yearbook publishing company Jostens, told ABC News.

This year students have been arrested and fined as a result of these incidents.

As a senior prank, three yearbook editors at Croatan High School in Newport, N.C., inserted three fake names into the yearbook that the school administration decided were "lewd heterographs," according to a statement released by the school district. The names were printed in the first edition of the yearbook without the knowledge of their adviser. Once the names were pointed out, the school prohibited further distribution of the yearbooks.

A Facebook page, "Free Croatan Yearbook Editors" shows photos of the three names printed in the yearbook which included Ophelia Hiney and Ben Dover.

The editors were also fined $700 each to make up for the cost of the unsellable yearbooks and given three days of suspension, according to both the Facebook group and a fundraising account that has been set up online to help defray the students' cost.

According to the statement released from the school district, Croatan's yearbook had been selected for a national award, but the yearbook publisher revoked it after the school discovered the prank.

Neil Whitford, the school district's attorney, would not comment on the specifics of the punishment.The school district's statement says only that "appropriate consequences under school board policy have been issued in a careful and measured manner which includes an opportunity for partial mitigation of the consequences."

This incident is only one, and relatively mild in comparison to other high schools. At Irving High School in Texas, ABC News affiliate WFAA reported that a cheerleader's name was removed from a group photo caption and replaced with a description indicating she was "ugly" and promiscuous. According to WFAA, the school district recalled the yearbooks after the mistake was found, but not before the caption went viral on social media.

There was another case of name calling at Hoosic Valley High School in Schaghticoke, N.Y. Two student athletes were identified as "creepy smile guy" and "some tall guy" in the yearbook instead of their actual names, the Associated Press reported. Amy Goodell, the superintendent of the district, did not return calls from ABC News, but told the Troy record it was "non-intentional, honest mistake"

And ABC affiliate KMBC found that a 17-year-old from Hickman High School in Columbia, Mo., was arrested for changing a fellow student's last name from Mastain to "masturbate."

In another case of yearbooks intersecting with sexuality and the law, Commander Jason Leavitt of the Park Ridge Police Department told ABC News that a 16-year-old student at Maine High School South in Park Ridge, Ill., was charged with disorderly conduct after he intentionally exposed himself in a yearbook sports photo. Because the boy was a juvenile, Leavitt would not release his name or the nature of the photo. Leavitt said it cost the school an estimated $1,400 to fix the yearbook, but could not comment if the student had to pay the fine.

David Beery, communications director at Maine South High School, would not comment, except to say the yearbooks were fine and distributed on time.