It was 1998. The new Wayzata Senior High School had just been built to replace the old high school (which is now Wayzata Central Middle School). And there was much rejoicing.

Well, the school administrators rejoiced, at the very least. They rejoiced by adding more school rules, such as "no hats" and "no going off campus". This made it quite difficult for the students to rejoice.

So, instead, they complained. Except for A.J. Hughes. He didn't complain. No, he wasn't that kind of person. Instead, he published a newspaper complaining about it. Its name was the Trojan Horse.

The Trojan Horse lasted for a year or so, but was then replaced by the Trojan Tirade

The Trojan Tirade was first created in 1999 by Adam Claude. The original Tirade website can still be found at users.qwest.net/~aclaude/tto/.

Since Adam Claude was a senior that year, he picked Reed Hoffman to be the editor for the 2000-01 school year. No record of this time has survived, so we don't even know if he actually became editor, or had to forget about it or pass it on to someone else. (If you have any information we don't, tell us).

For the 2001-02 school year, it seems Kevin Spahn was editor. He had his own website, at tiradespahn.tripod.com.

The last news post on his site starts by saying: "So far no one has gotten in touch with about about the editorship for next year. Doesn't look good for you underclassmen."

However, Kevin Nelson decided otherwise, and was editor of the 2002-03 Tirade. He was generally reguarded as a "pretty cool guy", at least according to the two people I interviewed. Most seniors these days don't remember anything about him, other than that the Tirade being pretty good back then.

The next year, 2003-04, there was no Tirade, and the only newspaper we had was the repulsive Trojan Tribune.

Around December 2004, a group of juniors and seniors were discussing bringing back the Tirade. In the end, three people - senior Megan Ritchie, and juniors Kate Chanba and Beth Smeltzer were the editors who brought back the Tirade that year.

A grand total of two issues of the Trojan Tirade, Volume 5 were distributed during that year. Most people were of the opinion that it was better than the Tribune, but not as good as how the Tirade used to be. Of course, people have said that about every volume of the Tirade.

And, then, Megan Ritchie graduated. The year ended. When questioned, Beth claimed the next issue would be released in October. October passed, and the Tirade was always scheduled to be released "soon".

Kate Chanba, the other editor, claimed that the Tirade had effectively been dropped, and she hoped someone else would pick up the metaphorical reins.

At around the same time, junior Cheny Luo was discussing with junior Chris Heffner the possibility of "overthrowing" the current editors, who were doing absolutely nothing. Also at around the same time, junior Claire Watne had the same plans. They eventually discovered each other and joined together.

Cheny observed that the current editors still used the trojantirade@hotmail.com e-mail address Adam Claude used in the first issue, which meant that previous transfers of power had been quite peaceful. However, due to personal grudges, the e-mail address was not transferred to them.

After much arguing, transfers of power, mutinies, and deadlines which writers failed to acknowledge (in other words, just like every other issue of the Trojan Tirade), the Trojan Tirade, Volume Six, Issue i was published, with the tagline "The Newspaper That's So Underground Even The Editors Don't Know This Issue Is Being Published", dangerously close to the end of the 2005-06 school year.

Two more issues of the Trojan Tirade were released in the 2006-07 school year, before lack of interest led to the end of it.

No Trojan Tirade has been published in the 2007-08 school year, nor the 2008-09 school year so far. Newer students are unlikely to have heard of it, so another resurrection seems unlikely.

However, if you wish to publish the next issue of the Tirade, feel free! Contact us using one of the methods listed on our Contact Us page.