A Great Prank

Usually the squids beat us on anything requiring creativity and wit, but I think Army wins this one:

Shots fired! Army-Navy game season has officially kicked off in the form of a fake City of Annapolis news release announcing the Maryland capital's first annual "Go Army Beat Navy" day.

The faux announcement went up on the news release site PR Newswire on Nov. 4 and by midday had been picked up by Yahoo! News and tweeted out by two West Point-affiliated Twitter accounts...

Mike Nemeth, a 2004 West Point graduate and former intelligence officer who now works in marketing in Ohio, conceived the scheme: Using his newswire access, he posted that the Annapolis City Council had voted 7-1 on Wednesday to celebrate "Go Army Beat Navy" day on Nov. 6 as a nod to West Point supporters and alumni living in the Naval Academy's shadow.

The release included comments from fake business owners — identified as Sylvia Thayer and Fred Steuben, a nod to West Point's first superintendent Sylvanus Thayer and a Prussian general who trained Continental Army soldiers: "We constantly hear from our customers that there's more to this town than supporting the Navy. Not everyone likes boats — [i]t'll be great to support real soldiers for once."

A spokeswoman for the City of Annapolis was happy to debunk the supposed city council proclamation.

"We know these pranks happen every year and we look forward to them, but to that I say, 'Go Navy!' " said Rhonda Wardlaw, adding that the city, of course, has the utmost respect for the other service academies...

"My favorite part has been friends of mine screenshotting reactions from midshipmen and Naval Academy people," he (Nemeth) said.