University of Akron students couldn’t believe their eyes when they picked up the Buchtelite in January 1966.
The school newspaper was filled with wild stories about the overthrow of student government, new courses on voodoo, a proposed nude statue of the college president and the transfer of 1,500 ROTC cadets to the Pacific to participate in hydrogen-bomb tests at ground zero “to comprehend the full effects of the blast.”
Upon closer inspection, stunned readers noticed that the front-page banner read “The Akron Buchtelaff” (“Serving Campus and Conformity Since 1899”). This wasn’t the Buchtelite! The sedate UA publication fell prey 50 years ago to an uproarious prank that delighted students and miffed administrators.
If the humor of the Buchtelaff seemed a little sophomoric, so be it. Instigators Andy January, political science, and Chuck Schadl, English, were 19-year-old sophomores at the time. The 1964 Hoban graduates dreamed up the parody newspaper after the university canceled an April Fools’ Day edition of the Buchtelite the previous spring.
“We were on the Buchtelite staff and we wanted to do that April Fools’ issue,” recalled January, 69, co-owner of January Paint & Wallpaper in Akron. “Basically, it was going to be a spoof on ROTC. It was all approved, and then at the last minute after they started printing it, they pulled it.”
Schadl, 69, group manager of government contracting services at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, thinks he knows what happened: “The faculty adviser ratted us out.”
The plot thickens
After parting ways with the Buchtelite staff, January and Schadl began planning a parody of the paper to skewer life on the UA campus. Joining the cause were students Fred Milo, George Noffsinger, Pete Lehmicke and Barry Tumpson, whose uncle ran the Berger Printing Co. in Pittsburgh.
“First of all, you’ve got to kind of understand the time that we found ourselves in,” Schadl said. “Everything was a time of rebelliousness. We had the Vietnam War raging, the civil-rights movement, of course, was still very active. … There were so many things going on in society, and at Akron U., the environment was sort of a pretend environment. It was like a cocoon where nothing was supposed to happen.”
The pranksters wrote satirical articles, took funny photos, drew cartoons and sold ads to the Buchtelite’s sponsors. “They thought it was a hoot, too, because they let us create ads that spoofed them,” Schadl said.
With humor in the style of Mad magazine and Cleveland TV host Ghoulardi, the eight-page Buchtelaff was pieced together in a few weeks.
“We were too dumb to know we couldn’t do it,” January said. “So we just did it and it happened.”
One column offered a recipe for “Barberton Clam Chowder.” The ingredients were two quarts of “real Barberton clams,” a quarter pound of bleu cheese, a quart of fresh milk, a quarter pound of butter, a pint of “some powerful solvent” and a brick. “Even if it should turn out that the clams are no good, at least the brick can still be used,” the Buchtelaff noted.
In a letter to the editor, a “worried mother” wrote: “In a recent letter that I received from my daughter, she said that the boy and girl students will be allowed to matriculate together — right in front of everyone. What’s more, she said that the professors discourse with young girls in class.”
Classified ads included a lost bra (“Will appreciate finder placing in plain brown bag”), a Phi Sigma Kappa wanted ad for someone to hold (“We are desperate”) and a personal ad that broke news (“SAM — Send money, it’s a girl, Joan.”).
The front-page headline “Nude Statue of Auburn Proposed — OK With Balls” was a shocker. The article explained that sculptor “Phineas Q. Nude” had been commissioned to create a life-sized statue of UA President Norman P. Auburn, and that “George Balls” of the University Faculty Committee on Culture had endorsed the plan.
Reaction builds
The Buchtelaff staff printed at least 3,000 copies in Pittsburgh and waited patiently until a January 1966 day when the Buchtelite did not publish. The fake newspaper was placed in Buchtelite bins across campus.
“I remember that morning when people started picking up the paper,” Schadl said. “You know, it was kind of a routine: you’d go by the rack and pick up your student newspaper, take it with you and read it later. There was a slow, rollout reaction to it. People at first thought it was real. They didn’t know how to react to it. It was tremendously confusing.”
And then the laughter began. Students ran back to the racks to grab extra copies. The whole campus was abuzz.
About the only ones not chuckling that day were the Buchtelite staff, who confiscated stacks of Buchtelaff issues, and UA administrators, who failed to see the humor.
“This was a completely independent thing and had nothing to do with the Buchtelite staff,” George Ball, directory of university relations, told the Beacon Journal in 1966. “The university has no official comment.”
The Buchtelaff pranksters roamed the halls for donations, carrying a can with a slot in the top.
“We were going around saying that we were with the Buchtelaff and we needed to defray legal expenses and printing costs,” January said. “People would put quarters in … ‘How much do you guys need?’ ”
When Schadl got to the English department, amused professors stuffed bills into the can. In due time, the Buchtelaff printing bill was paid off.
While there was talk of disciplinary action against the students in the prank, the university declined to suspend or expel them.
So the Buchtelaff staff got the last laugh.
“I guess what I would be most proud of even today is that we printed a spoof that was double the size of the regular student newspaper,” Schadl said.
January can’t believe that 50 years have passed. “This is still very fresh in our minds,” he said.
He owns a 1966 edition of the Buchtelaff and offered to send a free electronic copy to anyone who wants to see it. If you’re interested, email him at andy@mybeautifulhomeshow.com.
“I’ve always been glad I was part of it,” he said.
Copy editor Mark J. Price is the author of Lost Akron from The History Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.