Alis Cadena, Hayden Collins, Carlye Mahler and I have been working together to come up with cover ideas for all the issues of the Reporter so far this year. We’ve come up with the idea to have an agreed-upon cover photo, and to use the back cover as a “blooper reel”, a fun and/or chaotic version of the cover photo. 

Although I took the cover and back cover photos for this issue, I did not come up with the issue’s celebratory theme, nor did I come up with the idea to put a subject on the cover with a cake and to smash that cake in the subject’s face on the back cover. 

Looking at the cover, Roellke makes sense as our subject. He’s the face of the university, so he should be the one celebrating Stetson’s 140th anniversary! Looking at the back cover, we hope our readers chuckle at the thought of our university’s president agreeing to get cake smashed in his face and to have it published, distributed campus-wide, and immortalized in the Reporter archives. 

The photoshoot itself definitely had its difficulties. The first challenge was the cake. Since we arrived separately, Carlye walked me through her pre-shoot experience. “Ali [Burgess, Executive Editor of Touchstone] helped me transfer it to a plate… I carried it on a plate from the Hatter network office all the way across campus to president Roellke’s house, in the rain.” Luckily for us, the cake managed to remain picture-perfect for the whole shoot. 

The second challenge was the post-shoot mess. The green dye in the icing on our cake was, as we found out, highly transferrable. Carlye’s hand, featured on the back cover pushing a chunk of cake into Roellke’s face, was stained green afterward. She told me later she hoped his face was okay. I don’t recall seeing any green blemishes on his face, though, when Carlye and I said goodbye and headed out. Also, don’t fret: the confetti we used was biodegradable! Roellke’s patio and backyard suffered no harm during this photoshoot. It was a little bit more colorful after we left, though. 

We also tried to get a bubblegum photo of Carlye–just an extra fun and celebratory shot. We got Big League Chew because that was one of the top results when you search “best bubble gum blow big bubble” on Google, but it still took Carlye about 20 tries until she managed to blow a big bubble. Unfortunately, I was so in awe of the bubble that I forgot to throw confetti at her, and I didn’t take a picture, either. Needless to say, Carlye had to do it again for me to get the shot. 

The one aspect of the shoot that gave us no trouble at all was Christopher Roellke, the President himself. He was a fantastic subject to work with, from getting the shoot scheduled to being posed. We’re grateful to have a university president who is as excited to have cake shoved into his face for the enjoyment of the student body as President Roellke was.