Teens take WWII-era M3A1 tank to prom, led by a bagpipe player on a unicycle wearing a Darth Vader mask

• Two high school kids turned up to their prom in Portland, Oregon, in a WWII-era tank.
• A man wearing a Darth Vader mask and playing flaming bagpipes on a unicycle led the procession.

This year's prom will go down in history for Camas High School in Washington after two students hired a tank to take them to prom.

Sherman Bynum, a high school junior, and his friend Sam Tetro, a senior, arrived at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon on Saturday night in a World War II-era armored vehicle.

They then did two laps of the museum in the 1942 M3A1 Stuart tank, guarded by a security detail, Bynum told Insider in a phone conversation.

To make it even more memorable, leading the procession was a local Portland celebrity known as Unipiper, who wore a Darth Vader mask as he rode his unicycle while playing flaming bagpipes.

CBS News affiliate station KOIN was the first to report on the memorable tank expedition.

The grand entrance was months in the making, with Bynum and Tetro launching a GoFundMe page in February to raise money for it.

"I have had the goal to ride a tank for years now, and with the opportunity of prom around the corner, it is only natural that the two mix along," Bynum wrote in the GoFundMe description.

Initially, Bymun told KPTV Fox 12 Oregon that he and Tetro didn't have prom dates. But Bymun was ultimately accompanied by Mycah Chala, who was invited to join the armored vehicle with a witty sign that read: "I'd be tank-ful if you went to prom with me!"

Bynum researched into whether taking a tank to prom was legal, and got permission from school administrators before going ahead with it, according to the local news outlet Lacamas Magazine.

The crowdfunding campaign raised a total of $1,675, more than the $1,000 that was asked for by the private owner of the tank, who drove the vehicle.

Reflecting on the unusual choice of transportation, Bynum said: "I'm kind of a thrill-seeking, adventurous person."

But he explained that although turning up to prom in a tank was funny and attention-grabbing, there's actually a deeper meaning behind it.

His father, who had Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia, was a history buff who loved tanks. Bynum said he shared the idea of going to prom in a tank with him during a phone call in February.

"He just thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard," Bynum said.

His father died a few days later. This spurred Bynum to get the ball rolling and start making phone calls, he said.

He added: "I knew that if I did this, whether he was right there in front of me or holding my hand from somewhere else, I knew that I would be honoring that spirit of adventure and doing good things."

And although it may be hard to top this year's grand entrance, Bymun said he has plans to keep up that spirit of adventure.

For next year, he said, "we're going to do a skydive into prom."