Missisippi's Tate Reeves becomes butt of the joke with high school prank
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Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves became the butt of the joke while paying tribute to high school graduates when he fell for a prank Bart Simpson would be proud of.
On a Facebook live session Saturday, Reeves started reading the names of graduates from Florence High School, his alma mater, when he came to an unusual name – “Harry Azcrac.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Republican, 45, read it, paused briefly and kept going.
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A clip of Reeves reading the name subsequently went viral on Twitter, although he handled it with good grace.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He tweeted: “Harry’s submitter has a bright future as a Simpson’s writer!”
In "The Simpsons," Bart famously tortures bar owner Moe Szyslak with fake names during prank calls, including “Al Caholic”, “Oliver Clothesoff” and “I.P. Freely.”
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gov. Tate Reeves on May 20, days after he was duped during the Facebook Live graduation read-out (AP)
He added that he would be back online to read more graduates’ names, quipping: “Maybe even Ben – the pride of the Dover family!”
Thomas DeMartini took credit for duping the governor.
“Proud moment: I got Tate reeves to say the name Harry Azcrac on Facebook live. And yes I’ve been laughing for about 25 minutes now,” he tweeted on Saturday.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Reeves had asked people to submit names of high school seniors so he could read them aloud on the webcast to help recognize those who are missing traditional graduation ceremonies because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Renae Eze, a spokeswoman for Reeves, said Wednesday his staff had spent hours collating almost 10,000 individually submitted names.
As for Mr. Azcrac, it appears to have slipped through the cracks.
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“We can probably say it’s not a real person," she conceded.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.