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Glenwood teacher nears New Yorker glory

Will Grandbois
will@postindependent.com
Hilary Garnsey holds the issue of the New Yorker containing the cartoon for which she is a finalist in the magazine's caption contest.
Will Grandbois / Post Independent |

Folks who follow the New Yorker magazine might have noticed a Glenwood Springs resident among recent finalists for a weekly cartoon caption contest.

“It looked a little odd seeing my little town there,” said Hilary Garnsey, who submitted a snarky caption for a cartoon featuring a pair of giraffes lounging at home. “What happened to us? We used to be so wild,” her caption read.

A teacher at Crystal River Elementary School, she’s a longtime New Yorker reader.



“My kids always turn to the back page, and we make a sort of game out of coming up with captions,” she said.

They don’t usually submit their ideas, but this one for the giraffe couple struck her as too good to pass up.



With more than 5,000 entries a week in the contest, she made it to the top three, so the judges must have agreed. Her parents, who make the subscription an annual Christmas gift, have been telling all their friends about it.

Voting closed Sunday, and the winner should be printed next week with a prize of glory and bragging rights. Even if she doesn’t take the top slot, Garnsey considers it an accomplishment to have made it this far.

The contest used to have a prize — a framed and signed print of the cartoon, with the winning caption — but the magazine earlier this year eliminated that. Robert Mankoff, the magazine’s cartoon editor — yes, cartoon editor — wrote that the prize “creates legal issues that make it difficult to have citizens from certain countries enter” and disallowed entries by anyone younger than 18.

A win from Colorado is rare. According to a map published online in September 2015, the state has recorded no more than two winners in the history of the contest.

UPDATE: The New Yorker published results of the contest Monday and Garnsey did not bring home caption fame for Colorado. The winning entry was: “Sorry I’m late. I hit every traffic light coming home.” (Because giraffes are tall …) It was submitted by Kristin Provisero of Cold Spring Harbor, New York.


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