Operation: Everyone Loves a Parade
Linda Moeller, 2001
In the latest chapter of the Wartburg-Luther rivalry, members of KWAR-FM radio station not only infiltrated the Luther’s Oct. 17 Homecoming parade, but they did a live broadcast of the entire escapade. The station airs on the 89.1 frequency and calls itself “The One". Station manager Jay Boeding ’99 of West Union said it was the second consecutive year KWAR has pulled off a clandestine operation at Luther. 

Last year, posing as a church youth group from La Crosse, Wis., staff members got a campus tour, a free lunch, and free tickets to the Wartburg-Luther football game. During the tour, they surreptitiously left KWAR bumper stickers throughout the campus. After learning of the hoax, Luther officials billed the Wisconsin church for the students’ expenses, and Boeding happily picked up the tab.

This year, the Wartburg-Luther football game coincided with Homecoming for the Norse. Admittedly influenced by the college movie classic, Animal House, KWAR staffers decided to enter a float in the Luther parade. Passing themselves off as the Organization of Nature Enthusiasts (ONE) from Lanesboro, Minn., they got permission to participate in the parade and even notified the mayor of Lanesboro, who agreed to verify their status in case someone from Luther called his office.

On a drizzly fall Saturday, the KWAR entourage took a minivan and a cellular phone to Decorah, where they had arranged for a trailer to be waiting. They decorated the trailer, donned Luther clothes, put Luther signs on the van, took their place in the parade, and began a live broadcast, via cell phone, to the folks back in Waverly. When the float reached the parade observation stand, where Luther radio station KWLC was broadcasting, the students “cut the cake,” ala Animal House. They ripped off their Luther clothes to reveal Wartburg orange and black, they hauled out Wartburg signs, and they tore the Luther signs off the van. Boeding said about 40 Wartburg students who were at the parade-and reportedly even some alumni-eventually fell in step behind the float and joined the KWAR staff in yelling Wartburg slogans and distributing orange and black candy to the pro-Norse crowd. Although some observers registered disapproval and the float got its share of boos, the incident provoked no trouble. 
“The Luther students were good sports about it,” said Boeding. “They congratulated us and were laughing about it.”

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