Term: Pail and Shovel Party
Definition: an absurdist contingent of UW-Madison students who won control of student government in the spring of 1978 with the campaign slogan, "Are you nuts enough?" and conducted a series of classic pranks. On the first day of classes, September 4, 1979, Madison students awoke to find that more than 1,000 pink flamingos covered the University's Bascom Hill. Led by Leon Varjian and James Mallon, the Pail and Shovel party was also responsible for the often-photographed Statue of Liberty replica constructed on the ice of Lake Mendota. View more information elsewhere at wisconsinhistory.org.
[Source: "Bascom Hill Pink Flamingo" at Wisconsin Historical Society's Museum Object of the Week, September 01, 2005]
