This school year, teacher Jessica Davis had the task of teaching her eighth grade students in her honors classes about the economy, even with hybrid learning. One topic for her students to learn about was none other than the stock market. Taking advantage of the crazy events throughout the year, Davis used the GameStop stock situation, among other things, to teach about how investing in stocks can yield massive profit. Davis created a simulation for her students to manage how they invest their virtual money, with the option to put their money into stocks and CDs. However, what the teacher never knew was how popular the small simulation would get.

Davis gave the students an opportunity to win a small contest, earning nothing but boasting rights, by owning the most virtual money in stocks. While she meant this to be just a small competition, some of the eighth graders were already planning their victory. Two of these students were Harrison Michaels and Owen Larsen. The two biggest players in the competition were both close, mainly using donations to boost their count. While it seemed that the race would stay very close, Michaels had slipped up.

Although both of the competitors were focusing on donations, Michaels had been doing the transactions under the table, offering actual money to those who donated. However, he had never really gotten the donations approved by Davis, creating what already seemed like a sketchy situation, more unlikely to be a success. People were taking back their money and leaving the war by the minute. Rumours started circulating that Michaels had already tried to cash out their stocks, which he officially didn’t own. Conversely, Michaels stated he did not steal any money and instead that they had never made the transactions, and were only planning them. The whole situation was very confusing, but what we know from Michaels himself is he dropped out of the war and never came through with any of the transactions.

With his last competitor dropping out of the war, Larsen finds himself to be the last major player in this long and grade-wide contest. He still planned to push forward until the very last day of his civics class, he explained in an interview with the Sun.

Horizon Sun: What really caused you to compete in this eighth-grade war in the first place?

Owen Larsen: It really just started off as a joke between me and my friends, trying to find out how many stocks we could get.

HS: With the race coming to a close and you being basically the last competitor, why do you think you succeeded where others had failed?

OL: I feel like a lot of the other competitors didn’t use outside sources to their advantage. I was able to use CDs and friends in order to boost my stocks. Not only that, but I tried to be 100% legit to make sure that I did everything right.

HS: What is the first thing you are going to do once you win this legendary contest?

OL: I am going to give a small speech and shout out everyone who helped me, because I couldn’t do it without them.

As the battle draws to a close, Larsen shared his estimated closings. He believes he will put in $41,780 in stocks, and will own 26,112 shares altogether in Ford at the 52-week high, a number he says he could never imagine when first entering the war. To many, this battle gave the end of the school year something to end on. It won’t just be the last days of school, but of the Stock War as well.