By Tyler J. Scott ’12
THE ROUNDUP
It’s Nov. 24, the day before Brophy’s long awaited Thanksgiving Break, and students are buzzing about the newest edition of the paper.
But it’s not The Roundup—it’s a one-page, front-to-back edition of The Wrangler.
“The Wrangler is a satirical publication meant to respectfully spread humor through fake news stories,” said Matt Munhall ’12, a writer for The Wrangler.
Mr. John Damaso ’97 is one of The Wrangler’s faculty advisers.
“The Wrangler gives students a venue for a different type of writing, one rife with parody, precision and wit. Lampooning a culture through writing allows a community to understand itself more completely, authentically and humbly,” Mr. Damaso said in an e-mail interview.
The Wrangler has been resurrected once again to deliver “Real, Comfortable, News” to students all across campus.
It is “resurrected” because The Wrangler has not been around for about a decade.
“The Wrangler is a revival of a satire newspaper of the same name from the 80s and 90s at Brophy,” Mr. Damaso wrote. “Briefly in 2002-04, another Brophy satire publication, The Curious Jorge, put out a few editions.”
Keith Bender ’11, one of the newspaper’s editors, said that he spearheaded the efforts to bring the publication back.
“I talked with Mr. Damaso because I know he has a special interest in this sort of thing and he agreed, and from then on it was basically smooth sailing with establishing a Blackboard group and ways to submit and just recruiting a great staff. Things have been going well so far,” Bender said.
When asked how he got the idea to bring The Wrangler back, Bender said, “The seniors last year put out a parody edition of The Roundup with limited circulation but it was very well received, and after seeing the impact that a little bit of humor can have on campus I thought it would be a great idea to bring The Wrangler back.”
Like the popular newspaper The Onion, satire is used in The Wrangler to combat routine student life by circulating humorous, creative articles.
The layout is simple but the ideas are hilarious. The Wrangler plays to students’ interests, chiefly comedic relief from “hard news.”
With quips like “New immersion trip planned to Central High School” and “Faculty yoga combines with faculty fight club,” The Wrangler offers a healthy change of pace from normal, everyday news.
Trevor Szafran ’12 said of The Wrangler, “It was hysterical!” while Miles Kent ’13 simply dubbed it “hilarious.”
The satirical newspaper strives to come out four times a year, or about once a quarter.
The Wrangler’s staff meets approximately two or three times a month on Thursdays at lunch in B202. When not formally meeting, the staff communicates through Blackboard and e-mails.
Mr. Damaso and Mr. Steve Smith ’96 are advisers to The Wrangler while Bender and Henry Wilky ’11 are the editors.
Don’t get offended by anything in The Wrangler because as its mission statement reads, “The Wrangler is satirical, k?”
