Here's an inventive way to get a television set for your classroom. From the Associate Press, April 19, 2006:
Hef gives TV to students watching his film
Associated Press WENTWORTH, N.C.Hugh Hefner was the one handing out presents as his 80th birthday rolled around.
Moved by a plea from a class that watched a film he produced - no, not one of THOSE films - on a 17-year-old television, the founder of the Playboy empire, who turned 80 on April 9, gave a 32-inch color TV to Rockingham County High School.
English teacher Angela Wilson said the idea sprouted in early March as her class studied Shakespeare. Part of the plan was to view the 1971 film "The Tragedy of Macbeth."
"We read the play and they wrote essays about it, and when we watched the video, they noticed that the executive producer was Hugh Hefner," she said Tuesday.
The students joked about asking Hefner to spruce up their audiovisual experience. While they watched the movie, Wilson drafted a note to the original playboy, asking for his help "so our viewing experience can be as wonderfully unforgettable as the film itself."
All 24 students signed the final version, and copies went out March 10 to Hefner's Chicago headquarters and the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. The reply came about two weeks later, when a Hefner aide called to say the TV was on its way.
The class reacted with "disbelief and shock, and then they started laughing, and then they got excited," Wilson said.
School officials did, too, and bought a combination DVD-video player to go with the set.
Wilson's students have followed up with a thank-you note that goes in the mail this week. She's also thrilled that Playboy staffers have asked for 10 copies of the school newspaper - she's the adviser - that contains an article about the donation so they can add it to Hefner's scrapbook.
