In light of Bark’s 50th Anniversary as a medium for student expression, a tribute seems necessary to honor the radical, sometimes obnoxious, underground papers that have upset Redwood sporadically since the ‘60s.

The material in question: The Roots, The Grapevine, and the Radical Noise, were all anonymously written and distributed, some parodying the Bark itself. Unavailable are the antiques: The Sledgehammer and The Liberal Voice from as far back as the Vietnam War, whose writers have mostly survived in anonymity.

Under pseudonyms like “The Doctor,” “Mr. Mysterioso,” and “The Mad Hatter,” Grapevine writers covered a variety of topics, but generally stuck to blasting administrators, the Leadership class, and the Bark.

The Grapevine “uncovered” what they called mass corruption in the school, reporting on plots as benign as stacking the Homecoming votes to those as extreme as brainwashing the student body or transforming Redwood into the Third Reich.

In the December 1979 issue of the Bark, a personality profile revealed the driving force behind both The Radical Noise and The Liberal Voice: sophomore Spiros Hinze. In an interview, Hinze, then the publisher of The Radical Noise, said that an underground newspaper “is supposed to stimulate thought and radical change in the student body.”

Before The Noise, Hinze worked at The Voice, but quit after the paper ran an article apologizing for the administration’s actions. The personality profile, and another article detailing the delayed publication of The Voice by an assistant principal, are possibly the only records remaining of these newspapers.