Fake president helping raise money for gift
Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Updated: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 15:02
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With over 2,600 followers and 1,400 tweets, the witty Twitter personality “Fake Mark Huddleston” has agreed to reveal him or herself. The only condition is this: 50 percent of the senior class participates in the senior gift campaign.
If 50 percent of the senior class participates in the fundraising campaign, “Fake Mark Huddleston” (@PrezHuddleston) will make the big reveal at the Lobster Bake on May 18.
@PrezHuddleston has been humorously tweeting for the past three years, taking on the role of impersonating the university’s president.
President Mark Huddleston is a fan of his impersonating Twitter persona.
“The ‘fake Prez Huddleston’ enterprise is usually great satire and we have had a good time trading tweets,” Huddleston said.
When President Huddleston was asked for his thoughts for a Portsmouth Herald article written in February about his Twitter counterpart, he had nothing but compliments to give.
“Very funny fellow. Wish I had as much time as he to compose witty tweets!” Huddleston said.
The Twitter personality has tweeted about events happening at UNH and different instances that have affected the students of UNH in an entertaining way.
“His tweets are really funny and they are relevant to what’s happening on campus on a daily basis,” sophomore Lindsey Mischik said.
Megan Hales, the assistant director of student engagement and young alumni programs, said that @PrezHuddleston approached her because he or she wanted to give back to the university. “I think the idea for the senior gift campaign is brilliant and hope this will be the motivation students need to participate,” Huddleston said.
In previous years, if a certain amount of the senior class contributed, then the actual President Huddleston would wear a lobster suit to the lobster bake. Hales said that traditionally, the asking amount in previous years was a donation in honor of the graduation year.
Instead of asking the 2012 graduating seniors to donate an amount of $20.12 this year, the amount is more manageable at ranging somewhere between $5 and $10. Hales hopes that more seniors will have the ability to give back to UNH this year with the smaller asking amount.
“We have done much better than last year, but we have a ways to go to meet our ambitious goal of 50 percent of the class,” Hales said. “Our goal is to make more people aware of the impact their gift, of any amount, has on the university.”
Usually only about one percent of the senior class will donate to the gift. Last year specifically, about 35 seniors donated. This year, however, there have been over 100 seniors who have already donated an amount ranging between $1 and $10.
Twitter persona @PrezHuddleston explained, “I wanted to give back in a unusual way in the final days of PHudd. Jokes aside, at the end of the day we all love this place.”
If seniors want to donate, they can visit www.unh.edu/seniorgift for more information.
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