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Here at Rock the Vote, we love to see young people register to vote. It’s kinda what we do. We hear a lot of stories about students throwing concerts, parties, and registration drives to register their friends to vote. But this story… this one has goat to take the cake (pun definitely intended!).

So I got the tip early last week that some killer awesome high school students in North Carolina were using a goat to register their friends to vote. You read that correctly. A goat. Four legs, floppy ears, goofy eyes. I saw the pictures, but I still couldn’t believe it. So I decided to do a little digging.

Turns out the goat, who goes by the name of Leroy, belongs to a Mr. Randall Williams, a teacher at Carolina Friends School in North Carolina. Mr. Williams teaches a Quaker Advocacy Class and had taken his students on a hands-on trip to Washington, DC at the end of March to meet with their state’s legislators.

Long story short, this advocacy weekend was the major event of the semester. Once the class returned from the trip, they had a few extra weeks to burn so some of Mr. Williams’ students came up with an idea. 

Cara DiLiberti and Madison Bennett, both seniors, proposed the idea of hosting a voter registration event (because what’s the point of an advocacy class if you can’t vote?!). But instead of just setting up a table at lunch, they chose a different strategy to get their classmates’ attention.

Here’s where the story gets fun. As it turns out, Mr. Williams happens to own a few goats. And when his students called on him to “Get Out the Goat,” he couldn’t resist. He chose Leroy, his most social goat, to join in the registration fun, and the class set to work. By the end of the day, Mr. Williams’ class registered a whopping 40 students (almost 100% of the senior class and nearly half of the eligible junior class).

When it comes to supporting the student population, Carolina Friends School doesn’t just register the goat, they rock the goat! North Carolina’s primary election is next month, and the school is not only letting students out of class to go vote—they’re busing students to the polls!

So cool.

Carolina Friends School sets a high bar for innovative voter registration events. Think you can top it? We challenge you. Just let us know so we can share!