Hidden grants misplaced

Steve Martin

Lawrence trustees from all over the country flew in to Appleton Wednesday for an emergency meeting regarding the so-called “hidden grants” that had mysteriously gone missing last weekend.
The meeting convened in the basement of Wilson House and will continue until the hidden grants are retrieved. Police have been conducting searches of administrative offices across campus this week but have yet to retrieve the elusive grants.
The panic began Sunday afternoon as Executive Vice President Greg Volk was reviewing the 2005 finances.
“The amount of the hidden grants had been smudged out on every copy of the report I could find,” stated Volk. “When I tried to nail down the exact amount of money I ran into trouble trying to track down the hidden grants.”
By the following morning the inquiry had escalated to a complete lockdown of the administrative offices across campus, pending a police investigation.
A spokesman for the Appleton Police Department admitted that the search for the mysterious grants has been complicated by the inability of any Lawrence official to disclose the whereabouts or the exact amount of the hidden grants.
“We’ve been searching everywhere for a ‘substantial’ amount of money, without a single witness claiming to have ever seen these grants,” one officer added. “We can’t even figure out what the grants are contained in. We’ve been told the money is in a box, an envelope or, as I was told, a small black pot full of gold doubloons.”
Dean of Admissions Steve Syverson responded by saying, “We’ve gone to great lengths to keep the location as well as the amount of the hidden grants a secret. We never anticipated losing them.”
According to Syverson, the hidden grants – which are comprised of gifts from alumni, parents and trustees – are “the single most important factor in keeping the cost of tuition down for students.”
An anonymous Wilson House employee disclosed that the hidden grants had long been kept beneath a ficus plant next to the desk of Lawrence cashier Donna Harding. Harding, however, denied any prior knowledge of the grants alleged hiding place.
“I’ve watered that plant countless times,” Harding said. “And to think there was so much money under there.”
When questioned about the missing grants, News Services manager Rick Peterson stated, “Just before the search began, over 60 Lawrence students spent their spring break in New Orleans helping displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina.