University of Colorado Yearbook Photo 1920

Most of the students pictured here, Borland included, were suspended for one year (Deane H. Dickason was expelled) for their part in the publication of a lampoon edition of the school newspaper Silver and Gold. The edition featured harmless jabs at campus staff and societies, including a good natured observation on an all-girl sorority: “The Chi Omegas are reported to be stepping out on the sorority house balcony at night with nothing but a bright light on.” Borland never returned to the University; he went home to Flagler where he worked for a year on his father’s paper The Flagler News. In 1921, he entered Columbia School of Journalism, taking his B.A. degree in Literature there in June of 1923. In 1944, Borland was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Colorado. Borland reflected on the suspension in an April 1970 Denver Post interview:

“I was too big for my britches. We needed something to jar us down to work. A thing like that kills you or drives you to justify yourself. It was stupidity–followed by a stupid reaction by the University. We were kids. . .But it was an overreaction. It wasn’t all that bad.” Borland summed up by saying, “those involved in the Quill Edition ruckus turned out pretty well, and not one of them ended up in a penitentiary.”