GRISWOLD, Conn. (WFSB) – A video of Griswold Middle School staff attempting the viral Whitney Houston Challenge has reached 6.7 million views on Instagram.<\/p>\n
The Whitney Houston Challenge involves people trying to hit one of the drum beats in the iconic song \u201cI Will Always Love You.\u201d <\/p>\n
The challenge has taken social media by storm, with actors, celebrities and locals attempting the difficult timing test.<\/p>\n
The Griswold Middle School video was filmed during the school\u2019s Red Ribbon Rally, which focuses on discussing the dangers of drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n
The video shows several failed attempts by school staff and the school mascot, Gris. <\/p>\n
A teacher and a local police officer also tried and failed to hit the beat correctly.<\/p>\n
Health teacher Kristen Butremovic, who helped organize the rally, said she was inspired by other schools\u2019 videos on TikTok.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was on TikTok and I was inspired by other schools that had done something like it and I put it out to our staff and quickly I had five or six teachers sign up for it,\u201d Butremovic said.<\/p>\n
Butremovic also participated in the challenge but failed to hit the beat.<\/p>\n
Fifth grade math teacher Erin Shea was the last to attempt the challenge during the rally. <\/p>\n
After watching everyone before her fail, she successfully completed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hearts beating super fast, super super fast,\u201d Shea said before her attempt.<\/p>\n
Shea said she had developed a strategy after watching the previous attempts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was starting to see that it might have been five beats,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The video is one of the most popular versions of the trending social media phenomenon.<\/p>\n
The unexpected viral success has been overwhelming for the school community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been crazy,\u201d Butremovic said. \u201cIt\u2019s just crazy to think that our school, Griswold Middle School in Eastern Connecticut, has blown up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shea said the viral fame has had an unexpected benefit with her students.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve gained a lot of street cred from my students,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WFSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GRISWOLD, Conn. (WFSB) – A video of Griswold Middle School staff attempting the viral Whitney Houston Challenge has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":408464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[32318,56699,17963,7000,192402,4345,192404,563,68395,19127,192405,358,2397,192403,3187,172029],"class_list":{"0":"post-408463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-beat","9":"tag-challenge","10":"tag-connecticut-news","11":"tag-ct-news","12":"tag-griswold-news","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-i-will-always-love-you","15":"tag-instagram","16":"tag-middle-school","17":"tag-rally","18":"tag-red-ribbon-rally","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-tiktok","21":"tag-tiktok-challenge","22":"tag-tx","23":"tag-whitney-houston"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115622046834213686","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}