Northfield News column: Make a bid and become my hero

EDITOR'S NOTE: In June 2004 I began a new venture as managing editor of both Northfield News and Faribault Daily News. This column originally appeared in the Northfield News on July 7, 2006.

As some of you know, this coming week several of us from the News have volunteered to allow someone to stuff a cream-filled pie into our faces next Thursday when we revive our "Pie in the Square" tradition. The event is a fund-raiser for the Northfield Community Action Center's food shelf, and so a group of us volunteered for the cause. OK, so some had to be cajoled into participating, but once on board, they've been u beat about the idea. Anyway, the other night as I was contemplating the thought of digging whipped cream from my nostrils, I remembered an ironic conversation I had with Publisher Louie Seesz not that long ago. The big guy and I worked the morning shift of the March home and garden show at the Middle School, and while we were walking around, we spotted several employees of a local firm that shall remain nameless dressed in comic costumes. It was a fabulous marketing scheme, and it also takes a special employee to be willing to don those types of costumes. As the big guy and I chuckled, I said to him only half-jokingly, "I'm willing to to do a lot of things for this job, but the day you ask me to ... ." He responded with a chuckle of his own, one which I only now realized maybe wasn't in jest. So, here we are, some four months later and I've volunteered to stand in Bridge Square, with hundreds of people watching, and take a cream-filled pie in the face. The costumes at the garden show are beginning to look better and better ... Don't get me wrong: You find out quickly in this business that if you work in the newsroom at a small paper, you'd better not take yourself too seriously. At my first job at a weekly paper in northern Minnesota, I narrowly missed the opportunity to kiss a pig. As a promotion for the county fair, the local radio guy, a couple of other local "celebrities" and I were used as guinea pigs (excuse the pun) to bring up attendance at one of the main event grandstand shows. The gimmick was that jars with our photos attached to them were placed around, and whosever jar raised the most money got the honor of kissing lil' Charlotte. Thankfully, being rather new to town, I lost in a landslide. That is but one example of the things I've been subjected to working at small-town papers, but I digress. Getting back to next week's pie in the face fund-raiser, I write to ask for your help. You see, obviously my boss cunningly designed this fund-raiser with me in mind. I think it's retaliation for my comments at the garden show. So be it; I can accept that. This is my hope: Someone out there -- in honor of all the pig-kissin', pie-in-the-face-gettin' comedic adventures I've undertaken as a reporter -- will lay down a big bid to be the one to put a pie in the big guy's face. I would place the bid myself, but next Friday morning after the event is over, I have to return to work with the big guy, and I don't know that it's in my best interest to be the one doing the pie-stuffin'. So, this is my plea. There still is plenty of time left to submit your bid and gain the honor that will go with stuffing a pie in the publisher's face. Although I won't publicly show my glee when it happens, inside I'll be elated that he got his just desserts. (Sorry, couldn't refuse that pun either.) Think of this bid as symbolic. Think how many other employees out there would pay money to pop a cream pie in their boss' face, but don't dare. You'd be doing this on my behalf and for humankind. You'll be a hero to the common man. ... And just remember the money goes to charity to boot. Can you get a better deal? Oh, and don't forget, those other four characters here at the News that'll be getting a cream pie facial: Michelle Kubitz, Jeff Wald, Ryan Heinritz and Renee Huckle. Bid on those guys as well. I don't think anyone should come out of this unscathed, and yes, I realize that means me too. But, unlike the time when I almost had to kiss the pig, or the time I had to judge dozens of bad-tasting county fair food entries or the time I became a construction laborer for a day -- all in the name of being a reporter -- this time I won't be alone. The big guy's coming down with me, and that'll make my pie in the face one of the sweetest treats I've ever enjoyed. -- Devlyn Brooks is managing editor of the Northfield News.