The Student News Site of Malvern Preparatory School

Friar's Lantern

The Student News Site of Malvern Preparatory School

Friar's Lantern

The Student News Site of Malvern Preparatory School

Friar's Lantern

Assembly to revisit Astronomy themes

Banned speaker re-invited to speak by accident.

In an unfortunate turn of events this week, it has been revealed that  an astronomy speaker remembered fondly as ‘Aliens built the Pyramids guy’ has been re-booked and will speak again on Thursday, April 10th, before the Stations show.

This expert speaker has been curator of the numerous astronomy-related organizations, and last came to Malvern on October 20, 2010. All was going well until the last question, when someone asked about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.  The speaker responded, “I believe that we have been visited before, I mean look at the pyramids, they (the ancient Egyptians) couldn’t have done that on their own.”

This statement ignited debate for weeks and weeks to come. Malvern promised never to book him again, until they mistakenly did so over this past weekend.

Apparently, Mr. Algeo was cleaning out old emails when he accidentally sent the speaker some junk email.  The astronomer responded, asking if he could come back and be booked for a speaker series. Mr. Algeo, not realizing his infamous nature, re-booked him.

“I honestly didn’t remember him until Mrs. Nicotera came running into the room screaming ‘He’s on the blacklist!’” said Algeo.  “I tried to undo my actions, but he already committed to going, and even agreed to waive the fee. I don’t know what to do.”

Teachers and students are reacting differently to how to handle this situation. The Adam Bryant team, consisting of Arjun Menon, Matt Heisler, and Tommy Pero, came up with a suggestion from their presentation. “Maybe to cut time into his presentation we can ask him to have the students text in their thoughts and feelings about 21st Century education and space,” Menon stated. “I mean, it worked out well for our presentation.”

Mrs. Kenworthey added “If he didn’t book his hotel yet, it’s non-binding. As long as his hotel isn’t booked we can still cancel him.”

Mr. Quinn stated, “You know, you shouldn’t discount him, there’s no way to prove him wrong.  Although all evidence seems to indicate he is.”  Quinn continued, “However, we could find that not only did aliens build the pyramids, but they actually constructed robots that creep into your brain and hold up index cards in front of your optic nerve that right now are showing you this quote that I didn’t actually say.”

The BFC tried to contact Mr. Donaghy, but his agent said he wasn’t fielding any calls on the matter.

Senior Hunter Paulus said, “I’m really interested to see what this guy has to say. Freshman year I fell asleep and missed the whole aliens part. Needless to say, I was pretty upset.” Brett Biscoll added, “I thought we left that guy in freshman year. What happens next, do we bring Mrs. Domin back?”

Junpei Li asked “Who is that?” then, after learning about the speaker’s past, he said “Oh, very cool” and walked away.

Matt Magargee said “I’d love to be a freshman again, so needless to say I’m excited for this assembly.” And Connor McNeill pondered, “Does this mean we’re not having break?” Many kids around him supported his question. “Because if we don’t get any break, I’m not trying to go to this guy’s speech.”

Mr. Algeo promised that he would go above and beyond the usual stale pretzels and water bottles for this assembly. “I don’t know what the selection will be, but there’s talk of bringing the super cookie back.”

Super cookie or not, the assembly will definitely be interesting, and will most certainly create controversy for weeks to come.

 

Not a single item in this column is factual, except that Malvern did host a speaker in October 2010 who did claim that aliens built the pyramids.  Happy April Fool’s Day, Friars!

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    Bill BevApr 1, 2014 at 10:23 pm

    My favorite article of the year

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