The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
April 1, 2008
PRANK YOU, PRANK YOU VERY MUCH
I have to admit I've waited well over a year for our publication date to be April Fool's Day.
In my former career in Broadcasting April 1st was always a prank-filled day. I worked at radio stations in Kelowna and Penticton that would pull off some pretty funny stuff that was just about believable, which made them even better gags.
When I was managing the local Princeton radio station I continued the Otradition' with my own April Fool's Day pranks one of my favourites was April 1, 1998. The short version of the story is that I ran a news item that morning that announced the owner of the radio station had sold the business and was going into the newspaper business. The funny part was that there were already two weekly papers in town and now a third one was starting up.
I had even recorded congratulatory messages from local dignitaries and clients that aired throughout the morning to give the Othird newspaper' story some legs and accidental credibility.
One personal favourite moment from that morning came when my boss, the late Laurie Currie, sat in the control room with me to catch the morning news live. I hadn't told him about the prank so he got to hear it for the first time along with all the other listeners. It was a funny moment for me not so funny for Laurie.
Another was when Dawn Johnson (News Leader owner at the time) received a number of phone calls alerting her to the news on the radio. Dawn and her family had just started the News Leader a few months before.
Her reaction was typical Dawn. She shrugged it off as me pulling an April Fool's gag.
Anyway, the reason why I'm telling you this is to help explain why you see a number of stories in this week's News Leader as being written by a reporter named April Phuel.
I hope I don't need to explain any further.
April does not exist. Sound out her surname, if you must.
The last time the News Leader published a paper on April 1st was in 2003. That was when Dawn wrote a hilarious, yet believable story about a vegetation eating carp that was being introduced into the Similkameen River. I was just the Oad guy' for the News Leader at the time, but heard many comments about that prank from throughout the Similkameen Valley. In fact, one valley fish and game club got quite concerned until it was revealed to be an April Fool's prank.
There aren't many opportunities for us to write these kinds of stories in this business, so when Dawn and I first talked about the April 1st publication date, we knew we had to do something.
Hopefully you enjoyed our prank as much as we did putting it all together.
Sometimes we just need to laugh at ourselves, don't we?
