You may know the tale of the Fisher Bunny.

Struggling high school basketball squad decides to wear rabbit's feet for luck, starts to win and – voila! – a famous mascot is born.

But did you know:

– Every University High School student is required to run (or walk) a 5K race?

– Rantoul Township High School has a state-of-the-art greenhouse?

– St. Thomas More students must do 50 hours of community service before graduation?

Those tidbits and others from all 12 county high schools and Parkland College are detailed in a DVD under production by the Champaign County Economic Development Corp. The DVDs will be handed out to prospective businesses to showcase educational opportunities in the county.

"It's an effort to market schools countywide and not just one at a time, to show that Champaign County has great schools to offer," said Erik Kotewa, deputy director of the development group.

Employees will get an inside look at schools so they can make their own decisions about where to live, not "feed on other people's opinions and perceptions," Kotewa said.

"With industries come employees, and with employees come families," said project consultant Sara Seed, a former teacher. "We want them to look at the DVD and say, 'Wow! This school looks like it could be the best fit for our family.'"

Seed wanted the project to be "fresh" and innovative, not just a list of achievements – "a step above YouTube but not '60 Minutes'," as she put it.

She gathered information from every school, public and private – test scores, demographic data, graduation rates – then tried to find interesting stories about each one. She researched how many alumni teach in the district, where graduates go to college and how many enter the military.

Besides administrators and teachers, Seed interviewed several students and alumni from each school. She asked them about their best class, their dream prom date, and what advice they would give a family moving here from Idaho.

"The stories were really in the people I was talking to, not the canned interviews with deans or principals," she said.

The schools will be able to upload the video footage on their Web sites and use it however they would like, Seed said.

The finished product will also be available on the Web sites for the Economic Development Corp. and the Champaign County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Kotewa said. If it's a hit, the corporation may do another for elementary schools, Seed said.

"You can never have too much information out there," said Brian Beyers, a dean who escorted Seed and Kotewa around Urbana High School on Thursday. "For people to learn information about the school and issues in the community, I think that's a great thing,"

Seed taped her introduction for Urbana from the driver's seat of a silver Chrysler in the school's auto lab. Her segment noted how Urbana students consider the cultural diversity of their school a plus.

Fisher High School Principal Tom Shallenberger appreciates the chance to get the word out about his school, which has 210 students.

"Any time anybody's moving anywhere, education is a very important factor in where you want to live," he said.

"Here, all the teachers in the school know all the students. It's more homey. We have a lot of kids focused on doing well and going on to college."

Then there's the Bunny. The official history, according to Athletic Director Ben Durges, is this: A News-Gazette sportswriter who saw the team wearing the rabbit's feet back in the 1930s dubbed them the Bunny Boys. It stuck, though the school eventually dropped the "Boys."

The story has been picked up by national media outlets over the years, most recently ESPN last fall. As Seed taped her version at the high school this week, the mascot himself showed up – and wiggled his tail on camera.

"I just lost it," she said.