Another day, another NIU landmark beheaded. For the second time this semester, someone has stolen the head of Olivegoyle, the grotesque that stands beside Altgeld Hall.

The grotesque’s history goes back to the first NIU graduation. It was one of the original 11 that sat atop the castle.

Legend says that during the first NIU graduation, just after the president’s speech, a bolt of lightning struck the grotesque and it fell to the ground. The administrators decided to put it back on its pedestal, not expecting the same thing to happen at graduation the following year. After its second fall, it was placed in the garden where it stands today.

In fact, it was struck by lightning in 1966 and has been in the garden ever since.

C’mon folks, the prank is not original anymore. You can’t repaint the Mona Lisa, you can’t rebuild Stonehenge and you can’t steal the head of Olivegoyle a second time because then it just becomes a cheap knockoff of the original.

The Star is calling out to whoever took the head to bring it back. Hopefully, we’re appealing to your sense of school pride, but we’d settle for an appeal to your sense of maturity.

Also, the edit board of the Star decided that the name “Olivegoyle” is just not cute anymore.

The Northern Star ran a contest and named the grotesque “Olivegoyle” in 1996.

It was such a successful contest back then that we’d like to resurrect those old ideas and rename the statue once again.

Here are the rules:

1. Be creative – Submissions like “G. Diddy,” “O. Gro” or “The grotesque formerly known as Olivegoyle” will promptly be printed in big, bold type with your name and phone number on it and posted all over our office to be laughed and scorned before we thoroughly reject it.

2. Keep it clean – Enough said.

Send your new names to [email protected] . Then we once again can put a name with the face. When the face returns, that is.