GOSHEN, Ky. — Thursday was the most exciting day for second graders here at St. Francis School in Goshen.  

What You Need To Know

  • Run for the Roaches is a 10 year tradition 

  • Mrs. Brock’s class has about 20 Madagascar hissing cockroaches as pets

  • The students help name the racers

  • Madagascar hissing cockroaches make hissing sound and can distinguish each other’s hisses 
   

 

Students dressed in the most fashionable bow ties and fascinators to watch their class pets, 15 Madagascar hissing cockroaches take off for the finish line. 

Second grader Olivia Griffith fears almost every insect, but cockroaches don’t bug her out. 

“Cockroaches are cool,” says Griffith.

The 20 pet cockroaches in Ms. Joanne Brock’s class play a big part in that. 

“My college roommate mailed me two and a glad bag thing with a paper towel and a piece of dog food and we started with four,” says Brock. “14 years later, we still have all of the grandchildren.”

Brock has been teaching for 28 years and has had pet cockroaches for half of that time. 

Every year on Derby week, Mrs. Brock hosts the Run for the Roaches. 

Contenders included We Don’t Talk About Roach-O, Hissy Fit, Gov. Andy Roachear, Kick Cancer in the Roach, Frida Kahlroach, Spongebob Roachpants, Roachie the Riveter, You’ve Been Rick Roached (sired by Roach Astley), Hugs and Hisses, UnappROACHable, BaRoach Obama, Irish I Was A Roach, War Roach Eagle, Diary of a Wimpy Roach and Karen. 

“It was fun and there was a lot of like hissing in one of the races. It sounded like somebody was saying “S”,” says Griffith. 

The second-grade class helped Mrs. Brock come up with names for the contenders.

They used face paint to numbers on the racers to help tell them apart. 

This makes the tenth year, the roaches have hit the track. 

“It ties in with science. It ties in with the history of our state, not roaches in particular, but it’s something that we get to take part of as kids and it’s fun and exciting and we make it seem like something really special,” says Brock. “They all know in second grade this is the big event that they get to do so I hope it’s a good memory.” Brock. 

This year the big winner was Irish I Was a Roach.

“My favorite Irish I Was a Roach and we are super Irish at our house,” says Brock. “That was so exciting. It was the tiniest but the mightiest of all the roaches.”

Irish I Was a Roach won a large orange for crossing the finish line first.