Launched in September 2016, the Flamingle is WFAA’s weekly e-newsletter created just for UW–Madison alumni and friends. It takes the place of the former Badger Voice, a monthly mailing that was declining in readership and interest. The goal of the Flamingle is pure engagement: letting alumni know what’s happening on and around campus, tapping into nostalgia, and interacting in new, clever ways.
Each week, the team at Flamingle HQ builds the issue that will be sent on Friday morning. The Flamingle first gives readers the latest installment of its column Ask Abe, which looks into campus quirks, traditions, and history. Flamingle HQ also curates a handful of the week’s top stories about campus and the surrounding community — from the lighthearted to the academic to the serious to the controversial.
WFAA hatched a new publication that’s making alumni see pink.
Each issue concludes with the publication’s most popular section: an interactive component that takes the form of a poll, trivia test, or UW personality quiz such as Which Game Day Tradition Are You? In short, the Flamingle lets its readers revel in everything they love about the UW.
So why call it the Flamingle? Excellent question! On the morning of September 4, 1979, students trudging up Bascom Hill to their first classes of the fall semester wiped the sleep from their eyes to see the entire hill turned pink. The Pail and Shovel Party, led by legendary jokesters Jim Mallon ’79 and Leon Varjian MSx’83, “planted” 1,008 plastic pink flamingos on the Bascom lawn as a victory stunt after winning the student-government elections. The flamingo prank did more than give UW–Madison a reputation of “inspired goofiness”: it also solidified the bird as a campus and Madison icon. In 2009, the plastic pink flamingo became the official city bird.
WFAA believes in helping all alumni stay tapped into the inspired goofiness of UW–Madison. Will you be one of the 40,000-some alumni who flamingle with us?
Find Flamingle stories and quizzes at uwalumni.com/flamingle.