The Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences certainly provides plenty of entertainment and educational experiences that normal American high schools never see, but even this school never dealt with cows on the loose — until the first day of September, that is.

Principal William Hook said that he was getting ready to go home around 8 p.m. on Tuesday, September 1 following a program for freshman and sophomore orientation when he received an unusual call: two of the school’s cows were wandering around on 115th St., near Pulaski Road.

Luckily, the cows were still fairly close to home; the school, which is located at 3857 W. 111th St., has a 12-acre pasture for its six cows.

According to the Chicago Tribune and DNAinfo, the high school uses the cows for teaching purposes — along with plenty of other farm animals that are all well-cared for and which haven’t escaped from their pens, save for “a wily chicken or two,” since Hook has been principal.

Hook immediately responded to the call and found a police officer directing traffic around the two escapees, even though they both behaved quite well and stayed on the sidewalks.

A few staff members and approximately a dozen police officers from three different police departments came to assist the principal and lead the cows back into their pasture, which ran alongside the sidewalk. Some bystanders offered to help, but considering that the cows weigh around 1,400 lbs. each, most people simply took pictures and offered moral support.

The other four cows stood in their pasture, calmly watching the event, and offering their moral support as well.

The cow-wrangling team corralled the first animal through a nearby gate leading into the pasture, which only took about 10 minutes. The second cow was a little more stubborn and kept walking down Pulaski Rd., so it took about 40 minutes to herd it back to safety.

All in all, both cows were home safe and sound by 9 p.m.

Hook stated that the cows likely broke the straps which hold the chain link fence to larger posts. Once these straps were broken, the fence folded over and the cows were able to walk underneath it.

Students have since mended the fence and the school’s agricultural construction program has stated that its students may look into adding an electric fence to the current chain link one.

There may be over 89 million cows in cattle ranches in the U.S. today, but there’s no doubt that the Mount Greenwood community considers these rogue bovines to be extra-special.

The Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings are North Division rivals in the National Football League’s (NFL) National Football Conference (NFC). There is little love lost between fans and players when they meet on the field, but those emotions become suddenly frivolous when something happens like it did at the end of August. One unidentified roofer fell to his death while working on the new Vikings stadium, and another was seriously injured. John Wood, the senior vice president of Mortenson Construction and the general contractor in charge of the $1 billion project, described it as a “tragic day.”

“Our priority is to ensure that we know exactly what happened and ensure that it never happens again,” Wood said. “A man lost his life on this project today and that simply never should happen.”

The man who died worked for Berwald Roofing Co., and according to the Chicago Tribune he fell from the edge of the roof about 50 feet into a snow gutter on the north side of what will be U.S. Bank Stadium. It was only about 45 minutes into his shift, and he was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. There is no indication if the slope of the roof, which is measured in inches as a ratio of its vertical rise over a horizontal distance of 12 inches, played a role. As of this writing no causes have been determined, but Wood promised a “very thorough investigation.”

A later piece by the local Star Tribune, reported the man who died was Jeramie Gruber, 35 of Northfield. Family couldn’t be reached, but condolences and memories were being shared to his Facebook page.

It was a traumatizing day for workers throughout the safety-minded Mortenson company — a company so focused on safety they make their workers use the crosswalk and wait for the light whenever they have to get to and from the site.

Most metal roofs last for at least 50 years — and the Vikings are undoubtedly hoping it will be at least that long before they face another disaster. Keeping up with the 2016 deadline is important, but not so much that they didn’t send everyone home the day of the incident and have had counselors on site since.

“We’re not thinking about the construction schedule right now,” Wood said. “We’re thinking about these two men and their families.”