No Winner!

                        No Winner Declared in New Year Baby Contest

The Republican Herald has announced that there was "no winner "in the 2014 New Year Baby Contest as the mother of the child requested to remain anonymous. 

This has created the biggest mystery to hit Schuylkill County since 1995.  That was the year that Fox TV aired the “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” episodes on the long running Simpsons Show. Schuylkill County came to a halt that year.

The weeks leading up to New Years Day (all of which occurred in December) had Schuylkill County  bookies cashing in big as hundreds of Skooks placed bets on the whether the parents of the child would be married to one another, as well as the name of the child, or whether the name would be pronounceable, or the sex of the child, or what grade the mother of the child was in.   

Most of the bets were placed in small amounts with every bettor just wanting to connect to child in some way.

“Never underestimate Schuylkill County’s obsession with the New Year Baby,” said the paper’s editor, “It is generally such a big story.  It is our biggest selling paper of the year. It outsells the paper's recipe contest winner edition.  This contest happens before the College Football Championship Game, the Super Bowl, and the Winter Carnival….it fills the void of our betting public.  It gives a purpose to many to carry on; a purpose to live for.  However, this year all bets are off.  This is the worst crisis for the paper since 1995 when our investigative journalists erred in announcing that Moe Szyslak had shot Mr. Burns. We forfeited the Pulitzer Prize that year.

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 So far, reports indicated that the money was on Tayshaun, Kriztafher, or Pittman if the winner was a boy.  If it was a girl, the money was on Cicada (every 7 years this is the favorite), Yaritza or Tayshaun.  The public will now never know.   Mammy Trout had placed a $5 bet on the name Dasia, and a larger $25 bet on that the child would be born to parents who were both adults married to each other.  The payoff on the latter would have been huge. Now her betting slips are worthless. 

 

The outgoing chief of police was asked whether the bookies will have to refund the wagers as there is no winner. “Bettors have been anxiously clutching onto their betting slips for weeks now.  Nothing like this has ever occurred.  There is no precedent. We are in unchartered territory.  I may turn the matter over to the incoming District Attorney to investigate.”

Pottsville’s Surgeon General was also interviewed at the Eagles Club. “I hope the money wagered will just make the pot bigger for the 2015 contest.  I understand that if the winning baby was a child named Tayshaun born in wedlock, it could have resulted in a nightmare for the bookies because of the money that they would have had to pay out." 

He continued, "I have to remind the public that despite the hoopla surrounding the birth of the new year baby, if one places a lot of money, say one’s Christmas bonus, on the legitimacy of the child, then that person may have a problem….  All too often gambling addiction begins with seemingly innocuous bets like these. Now, I need to excuse myself as I am heading off to Mohican Sun.  Better luck to all in 2015. ”