Menomonee Falls Teen's Clerk Campaign Ends, 'Prank' Admitted

The saga of a Menomonee Falls teen who insisted he was running for Waukesha County Clerk appeared to conclude Tuesday when he announced on his Facebook page that the “prank” effort had ended.

Kurt Heins last week launched a campaign to unseat embattled clerk Kathy Nickolaus. He launched a Facebook page and published a YouTube campaign video featuring the high school principal and former Village President Joe Greco.

The prank went as far as filing in the county clerk's office.

A story in the Waukesha Freeman seemed to give legitimacy to the campaign, and on Sunday a Falls High School sophomore, Danny Crowley, .

Then on Monday, a story from WISN TV revealed the entire effort as a prank, as admitted by Reuben Glaser, the student who produced the video.

"I guess we have very different opinions on where this is," Glaser told WISN. "I think I might have to back off at this point and see what happens."

Heins was not interviewed in the WISN story, but about the time the WISN story came out, a status update on the campaign’s Facebook page announced the “decision to release Reuben Glaser as Chief Strategist and Campaign Manager. He was abruptly fired this evening for ‘disobeying’ Mr. Heins in what he called ‘insubordination.’”

The following day — just before 5 p.m. — the page posted a new status update, confirming that it was as senior prank and that Heins has “no intentions to run.” The campaign video has been taken down from the YouTube site.