Students at one Colorado high school arrived Thursday morning to find someone had wrapped a car around the school's flag pole.

That might have been a bigger cause for concern, but the car was put there intentionally as a senior prank.

The Eagle hatchback was cut in half and then welded around the bottom of the flag pole at Fruita Monument High School in Fruita, Colo.

Fruita is in west-central Colorado, about 15 miles from the Utah border.

Seniors Alex Amy and Jesse Poe later took responsibility for the stunt, reported the Grand Junction Sentinel.

The students told the Sentinel they decorated the car and then used a trailer to tow it to school. Fellow students armed with cell phones served as lookouts as the pair took an hour and 15 minutes to weld the car around the pole.

The two said they were careful not to damage any school property or disrespect the flag.

"We thought a lot about if people would think we were disrespecting the flag. I'd feel really bad if a veteran or someone took it that way. That's why I wrote 'God Bless America' on the side of it," said Poe.

Before Amy and Poe came forward, Principal Jody Mimmack said the perpetrators likely wouldn't be in any trouble as long as they came forward and offered to help clean it up.

Mimmack said as long as there weren't any complaints from the community, the school was willing to leave the car in place until the end of the school year.

"We traditionally have a senior prank," Mimmack told the Sentinel. "This one entailed a lot of planning and execution. It shows a lot of Wildcat pride."

However, Mimmack also urged students to use their best judgment when attempting pranks.

"We don't want anything malicious," she said. "We don't want anything that singles out a person or our school in a negative way. We don't want anything that does permanent damage."