April Fools’ Day aims to bring laughter and joy to those of us who take things too seriously.
Your feeds on April 1 are probably filled with a lot of things that you thought could never happen. On the national holiday for jokesters, all forms of media partake.
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The Lloydminster newspapers, radio stations and TV stations have all had their fair share of fun stories.
I’ve gathered a few April Fools’ stories that I found particularly entertaining. Back in 2005, Kurt Price was joined live on the radio by Ken Baker as the then-mayor made the announcement, they were finally changing the town name to Lloydminister. It didn’t take long for callers to phone in and express concern about how this would waste money, while others believed it was a solid move.
In 2008, the team at LloydFM thought it would be funny to stage it to seem like the Co-op parkade would implode. Dressed in high-vis vests and hard hats, they sold it to the crowd. People heard on the radio it was going to happen and poured around the structure to watch the countdown lead to … nothing. It was all an elaborate gag by the crew.
My favourite story was back in 2010 when the Lloydminster Source wrote the city was scheduled to finally become entirely the property of Saskatchewan. The article talked about how Alberta was falling apart and this was the best move for Lloydminster residents. My favourite touch from this article was the “continued on Page 2” at the bottom, when you flipped it over it was revealed to be an April Fools’ joke.
The final one I’d like to cover was in 1995 when a border marker fell onto the KFC bucket.
Of course, this didn’t really happen, but the Lloydminster Meridian Booster spent time altering an image to make it look like the border marker had fallen onto the bucket.
The bucket, which had allegedly been given to KFC owner Jack Ennabox by Colonel Sanders himself, was spared the fate of being squashed by a marker.
The border city has seen its fair share of jokes and attempts to humour the local viewing audience. I bring this up in my column this week as it’s a look back at some recent history, though some of these events are hitting the 20-year-old mark this year. It’s also an exercise in creativity. It’s something so amazing for a mind to come up with something so bizarre that it could be true, but strange enough it could never be true.
Those in on the gags help to sell the story and make it more fun. I love April Fools’ for a simple reason, I love a good laugh and I hope this year’s festivities were fun for you.
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