A crowd gathered this week around the absolutely immense sheet that has been covering some type of enormous building-sized structure for years in the middle of campus, as it was finally time for it to be revealed. As new recipients of a Stevens Press Corps badge that we got in exchange for promising not to start any tomfoolery in our journalism, we had front row seats and early admission to this grand reveal of whatever was beneath the sheet. We had the chance to catch up with some audience members ahead of time to get their predictions on what it was.
“I think it’s probably a Bass Pro Shops. A lot of time they have really tall and weird-shaped stores, and with the river right here, I’m not surprised they’re capitalizing on the market,” said one business major who was wearing a camouflage vest and carrying a Johnny Morris CarbonLite 2.0 Baitcast Rod and Reel Combo. We weren’t quite sure how a whole Bass Pro Shops would be built on a college campus but his logic was impeccable. There certainly is a river right there.
“We should take a minute to analyze the social convention of hiding our projects, our works of art from view until they’re completely finished. I think it takes away from the value of-,” “Whatever dude,” said our reporter, cutting off a man in a top hat and spectacles who looked like he was from the 1800s.
Soon, the moment arrived. The hubbub died down on the lawn. An expectant hush fell over the crowd as some workers climbed ladders to release the hooks holding the sheet up. Birds settled onto tree branches, and one of our reporters took the chance to climb a tree and get a really cool selfie. He then made a note about how it would’ve been better to use something other than ladders to get to the top of the sheet due to the obvious fall hazards presented by their extreme height.
The canvas fell in slow motion to reveal… a big new building, with tall towers (necessitating the aforementioned ladders), a big light up red sign, and tennis courts on the side. Our reporter in the tree promptly fell off his perch and was quoted as yelling, “How did they build all that without anyone noticing?” We here at Off the Press were truly dumbfounded by the scale of the new University Center and can’t wait to explore and cause problems inside it. We went around to get some other students’ opinions on the surprise.
“Why was it so secret? They could’ve done a really cool sign lighting at night or had a cool celebration and tour in May to hype it up,” one student told us while munching on one of the University Center-shaped cookies that had mysteriously appeared on tables all over the lawn.
“Well I still think there could be a Bass Pro Shops in there somewhere. Look at all that space,” said our first interviewee who we caught up with a few hours later as he was fishing right out of the river.
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