School Year 1989-1990

Changing of the Guard

In early December Ian Podraza's Blue Band duties had become so overwhelming that he stepped down from his presidential duties, leaving Eric "The Nine" Schr9ager in charge. I began to wonder if perhaps Ian had simply been hit in the head too many times by hardened marshmallows, traditionally thrown by rabid Penn State fans (and they think we're odd).

"The Nine" somehow escapes mutiny, courtesy of L.J. "Trotsky" Sparvero

Rachel Barr stepped in to fill the Vice Presidency position and, unlike her predecessor, refrained from hitting on freshman girls.

Since I'm mentioning personnel changes, I should mention that Ian also vacated the Completely Different co-editor's chair, and the very able, very normal Cathy Nelson stepped in to fill the gap.

A co-editor's duties mainly consisted of helping me to beat funny material out of club members, providing moral support and helping to brainstorm during design sessions, which were typically held in front of a Macintosh Plus in the campus computer labs. (In those days, we thought an 11-inch screen was impressive.) While most of the uncredited articles were written by me (as well as most of those using obviously silly pseudonyms), much of the uncredited filler material in the newsletters, such as letters to the editor, were written in tandem with Ian or Cathy, during such brainstorming sessions. Cathy also occasionally provided some of her original artwork. Ach! The fun we had!