It was 1998. The new Wayzata Senior High School had just been built to replace the old high school (which is now Wayzata Central Middle School). And there was much rejoycing.

Well, the school administrators rejoyced, at the very least. They rejoyced by adding more school rules, such as "no hats" and "no going off campus". This made it quite difficult for the students to rejoyce.

So, instead, they complained. Except for A.J. Hughes. He didn't complain. No, he wasn't that kind of person. Instead, he published a newspaper complaining about it. Its name was the Trojan Horse.

The Trojan Horse lasted for a year or so, but was then replaced by the Trojan Tirade

The Trojan Tirade was first created in 1999 by Adam Claude. The original Tirade website can still be found at users.qwest.net/~aclaude/tto/.

Since Adam Claude was a senior that year, he picked Reed Hoffman to be the editor for the 2000-01 school year. No record of this time has survived, so we don't even know if he actually became editor, or had to forget about it or pass it on to someone else. (If you have any information we don't, tell us).

For the 2001-02 school year, it seems Kevin Spahn was editor. He had his own website, at tiradespahn.tripod.com.

The last news post on his site starts by saying: "So far no one has gotten in touch with about about the editorship for next year. Doesn't look good for you underclassmen."

However, Kevin Nelson decided otherwise, and was editor of the 2002-03 Tirade. He was generally reguarded as a "pretty cool guy", at least according to the two people I interviewed. Most seniors these days don't remember anything about him, other than that the Tirade being pretty good back then.

The next year, 2003-04, there was no Tirade, and the only newspaper we had was the repulsive Trojan Tribune.

Around December 2004, Cheny was a freshie, in AP Calc, overhearing juniors and seniors discussing bringing back the Tirade. Turns out, three people named Kate Chanba, Megan Ritchie, and Beth Smeltzer were the editors who brought back the Tirade that year.

A grand total of two issues of the Tirade were distributed during that year. Most people were of the opinion that it was better than the Tribune, but not as good as how the Tirade used to be. Of course, people have said that about every volume of the Tirade.

Cheny, also known as the writer of this particular chronology, wrote an article for the second such issue, then gradually became interested in the Tirade and its history. He approached Beth with the possibility of making a website for the Tirade, and she thought it'd be a good idea. After he had made the first version of the website you are reading now, Beth had changed her mind, forgotten or denied giving such permission, and gradually withheld permission for the existence any sort of official website of the Tirade.

And, then, Megan Ritchie graduated. The year ended. The next year, Cheny questioned Beth about the Tirade and when it would be out that year. "October" was the reply.

(Much later, Cheny would ask Kate Chanba the same question, only to learn that they had - quite a long time ago, in fact - effectively dropped the Tirade and were hoping someone else would pick up the metaphorical reins.)

At around the same time, Cheny was discussing with Chris the possibility of overthrowing the current editors, who were doing absolutely nothing. Also at around the same time, Claire was discussing with all her friends the possibility of again resurrecting the Tirade.

One of Claire's friends was Tyler, who brought this up with Cheny. After much discussion, Cheny realized that Claire had absolutely no idea that the Tirade's editors were still attending Wayzata High School and therefore any attempt to bring back the Tirade would be a challenge to the power of the current editors. He observed that the current editors still used the trojantirade@hotmail.com e-mail address Adam Claude used in the first issue, which meant that previous transfers of power had been quite peaceful.

After much arguing, transfers of power, mutinies, and deadlines which writers failed to acknowledge, the Trojan Tirade, Volume Six, Issue i was published, with the tagline "The Newspaper That's So Underground Even The Editors Don't Know This Issue Is Being Published", dangerously close to the end of the 2005-06 school year.

And that's exactly where we are now.