Saturday, December 18, 1999

Just call him Joe Canada
So Boring he's famous

Robert Williams/Staff Reporter/THE WINNIPEG SUN

   Two Red River College students want to make Mike Zegil famous.
   Creative Communications students Kat Patenaude and Candice Knol accepted a challenge from CBC radio show Definitely Not the Opera to make Zegil, aka Joe Canada, a household name.
   "I think it's more like a social experiment than anything else and I was picked as the rat to run the maze," said Zegil, 27, who has been named the World's Most Average Canadian by DNTO.
   "We thought the idea was really, really neat - can you make somebody famous for no particular reason?" Patenaude said.
   The radio show found Zegil during a cross-country search and the public relations students started Hey! Communications to promote him.
   Zegil heard about the contest in October and entered with a 10-line e-mail describing himself as a comman everyman.
   "I have done absolutely nothing worth being famous for," he said during a phone interview from Ottawa.
   Hey! Communications, which has no budget, would like to get him on some national magazine shows and hook him up with a corporate sponsor or charity.
   "The big thing about this is, hey can we do it, and maybe we can do some good too," Knol said.

                                             Recognized by pizza man

   So far, Zegil has been featured on television, radio and in a newspaper article in Sudbury, Ont., where is is taking his masters in biology at Laurentian University.
   So far, his fame includes being recognized by a pizza delivery man and receiving a long-distance phone call to find out if he really exists.
   The project will continue until the pair can't generate any fresh or interesting ideas to promote him.

Link to The Winnipeg Sun

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