Pink flamingos, Statue of Liberty, boombox parade: The legacy of Madison prankster Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, a jester with keen insight into what tickles Madison's funny bone, was responsible for many of the celebrated pranks associated with UW-Madison in the late 1970s and '80s. Varjian died in 2015, but his legacy lives on in the people who admired student government's Pail and Shovel Party. His reign in Madison was marked by an uncanny ability to surprise or push a whimsy to extreme exaggeration. Whether it was the placement of 1,008 pink plastic flamingos on Bascom Hill, an amazingly realistic, though chicken-wire, Statue of Liberty (head, arm and torch) on Lake Mendota, or hosting a Halloween toga party for 30,000 people, the enduring quality was a willingness to go overboard. Chances are you heard about the jokes even if you didn't know his name.
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian in 1980
Leon Varjian flamingos prank
Bascom Hill, the first day of classes on a sunny September day in 1979, there sat student Joan O'Donnell eating lunch with 1,008 of her blushing, plastic friends. The flamingos, which were delivered unassembled, courtesy of a Wisconsin Student Association prank. The lawn ornaments quickly disappeared, but the legend lived on: In 2009, the City Council made the plastic pink flamingo the city's official bird.
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1978
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian leads a boom-box parade down State Street on June 2, 1980. Varjian, then a UW-Madison student, helped orchestrate some of the biggest stunts on campus in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Varjian was vice president and Jim Mallon was president of the Wisconsin Student Association.
Leon Varjian Statue of Liberty prank
Scholarly life never sank to mundane levels with Leon Varjian and Jim Mallon's Pail & Shovel (political) Party running the show at the Wisconsin Student Association, UW-Madison's student government. That was never so evident than in February 1979, when the top of a faux Statue of Liberty emerged through the ice of Lake Mendota, conveniently within walking distance of Memorial Union.
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian leads a boom-box parade down State Street on June 2, 1980. Varjian, then a UW-Madison student, helped orchestrate some of the biggest stunts on campus in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1978
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1979
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1979. While Iranian students and their supporters held a rally on the UW Library Mall, Leon Varjian, Vice President of the Wisconsin Student Association checks on the condition of the WSA's hope to free the hostages. Vern the Mouse, a gray and white lab mouse, is waiting to fly to Tehran to gnaw his way into the Embassy to free the Americans held inside. The WSA is taking donations to cover the $1568 cost for the round trip coach airfare from Chicago to Iran. The plan was unveiled on the Library Mall, several dozen yards from where the protest was taking place.
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1979. Leon Varjian, left, stands next to the winner of the Dalai Look-a-like Contest, Chris H., a '75 grad of the UW, as he accepts the cheers of the throngs on Langdon Street.
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian with Jim Mallon, 1978
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1989
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1984
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian, 1979
Leon Varjian
Leon Varjian with Jim Mallon, 1979
Leon Varjian
Math Teacher Leon Varjian at Midland Park High School in New Jersey Monday, February 5, 2007.
Leon Varjian
Varjian in 2015
Leon Varjian, a jester with keen insight into what tickles Madison's funny bone, was found dead Tuesday.
Leon Varjian, a jester with keen insight into what tickles Madison's funny bone, died five years ago, but his legacy as the city's favorite prankster lives on.
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