When Denver Brunsman, chair of the history department, walked into the department’s third-floor offices in Phillips Hall last Monday morning, he instantly noticed something was missing: a ‘z’ from the hallway’s set of blue “huzzah” balloons.
The “huzzah” balloons, part of the department’s “huzzah hallway,” arrived four years ago as a gift for Brunsman’s birthday, and they have since become a department staple and part of end-of-year celebrations. But one of the blue ‘z’ balloons vanished last week, prompting the department to blast out a notice in their weekly newsletter to track down the culprit and return the runaway letter to its rightful home.
Brunsman, who worked the weekend before the balloon’s April 6 disappearance, said he suspects the robbery took place the night before, either in the wee hours of the night or early that morning, because it wasn’t missing over the weekend. To solve the mystery, Brunsman said he put a “wanted” section in the department newsletter last Friday, hoping to receive tips on its whereabouts, though none come through.
“No one has reached out” Brunsman said. “No one is holding the ‘z’ for ransom, or hostage or anything like that. We are willing to negotiate for the return of the ‘z’ if the perpetrator would come forward.”
Anyone who knows Brunsman knows “huzzah” is staple catchphrase, which he said he’s used in his 22 years of teaching and took from the writings of American revolutionaries who used the word as a rallying cry for the movement.
Brunsman said the hallway that houses the balloons has become known as the “huzzah hallway,” a sign of how cherished the word and the balloons have become for the department. He said students gifted the current blue set of balloons last October, not for his birthday but because he finished his book “George Washington and His World,” which he is releasing in September.
Brunsman said the “huzzah hallway” boasts three sets of “huzzah” balloons but the blue set is hung lower than the rest, adding to his suspicion that the suspect took the ‘z’ balloon down from the ribbon that holds the letters together because it was easily accessible. He said he is hoping it can be returned before the department’s annual April end-of-year celebration.
“Like any crime, the longer that we get from the time it seems it might be harder to solve,” Brunsman said. “We are coming upon the end of the month, and so I hope that perhaps there’s replacement ‘z’ in the works.”
Alex Brandis, the staff administrator at the department’s Albert H. Small Normandy Institute, said that she hadn’t noticed the missing letter until Brunsman came into her office and told her, but her initial reaction was “funny shocked” as she couldn’t imagine who would commit such a crime.
“It was hilarious that someone stole the ‘z’, ” Brandis said. “If only they had stolen the ‘u’ or the ‘a’ because those are easily replaceable.”
She said the Normandy Institute’s signage had been stolen from their walls twice in the past and jokingly mused that the same person could have stolen the balloon letter. Brandis said the department ordered a new set of balloons for the department’s end-of-year party to maintain the annual tradition.
“The huzzah hallways of history might get some eye rolls, but it is also funny and exciting to exist in the history department and laugh about the fact that a ‘z’ is missing from our huzzah balloons,” Brandis said.
For now, the case remains unsolved, leaving the history department searching whodunit all while hoping the suspect will return the ‘z’ so the department can celebrate the many huzzahs of the future.
