Year: 2016

Hometown: Allentown, PA

Frank Winger, or Megaphone Man, is a senior business management major who spends his time riding in cars announcing Marywood events with a megaphone and adorning longboards with lights. He is involved with several Marywood activities and is working on organizing College SnowJam for a second consecutive year.

Q. First, who is ‘Megaphone Man?’

A. Megaphone Man is a super-hero and is a symbol for happiness. He is part of the quintessential college experience: a crazy guy running around. He is everything college should be and is filled with energy, youth and fun. Megaphone Man does things out of the goodness of his heart and will advertise any event on campus; if anyone asks me to do something, I’ll say when and where. Megaphone Man is my personalized way of giving back to the community and making campus even better.

Q. How did you come up with Megaphone Man?

A. Megaphone Man was born out of the Commuter Committee. One of the chairs came up with the idea for a car wash and I made people aware of it. At first, Megaphone Man confused people, but on every college campus, there’s someone like him. Throughout my life, people would say, “No, you can’t do that,” but when I got to college, I did things I wanted. I used to spend so much time sitting and waiting, but now if I want to do something, I get up and do it. I am proud of what I do and I realized that this energy makes people smile. Megaphone Man will not let up; I will continue, and I look forward to advertising for many, many more events.

Q. Who drives the car for Megaphone Man?

A. My roommate Matt Blank [senior business management major] usually helps me, but if he’s unavailable, my friend Christian Simrell [junior architecture major] will help me out. He has a white Jeep and when I saw it, I said, “Christian, you HAVE to let me do Megaphone Man!” We always have a good time; we’ll roll up to people we know and pick them up. However, Megaphone Man only works with a sunroof or roofless door, and I’m always looking for people to help me out so anyone interested can contact me at [email protected].

Q. What other activities are you involved in at Marywood?

A. I am a part of the Commuter Committee at Marywood and last year, I helped out behind the scenes at Arch Ball. I helped with the lights, sound and projectors for the event. I’m not in SAC, but I help out a lot with events such as helping with Family Feud. I don’t feel like I have to be involved in a club to do what I love and help people. I love promoting events and will just show up to any event.

Q. What do you get out of being Megaphone Man?

A. I will take anything and run with it. I have always liked doing fun things; I’m having fun and like having people feel happy. I’m having a great time and have had no complaints from others about being Megaphone Man. I like to think, “Who needs help? What can I do to make things fun?” If anyone on campus has any ideas, don’t be shy. Contact me for anything and shoot me an e-mail. “Frank” and “Megaphone Man” are not two different people. Megaphone Man is more of an alter ego. Megaphone Man is for advertising, and Frank is here to help out anyone I can.

Q. You don’t always get a ride from a friend; sometimes you use your longboard equipped with your prize-winning invention, Late-Skate, to get around. How did your invention Late-Skate gain momentum?

A. I like longboarding and after a friend got clipped by a semi-truck while boarding, I wanted to invent something to make boarding safer. Late-Skate is LED lights that are attached onto a longboard or skateboard that allow the user to see and be seen and is controlled with an app. I would test it around campus to make sure it worked. Last semester, we [Michael Neri, Class of 2015 and Sarah Liang, sophomore business major] entered Late-Skate in a local business competition and won. We gained a lot of resources and connections from the [annual business plan] competition.

Q. College SnowJam is an intercollegiate event on Montage Mountain that you founded last year. How do you plan to make this year’s College SnowJam different than last year’s? 

A. Last year, College SnowJam was only in the works for a few months and about 250 people came. Tim Kane [senior marketing major] and I are planning it. This year, we’re shooting for 1,000 people from colleges in the area. It’s going to be at Montage Mountain and people can snowboard, ski and meet other college students. We want it to take place the first or second weekend of February and we plan on starting advertising in November.

Contact the writer: [email protected]