Jeff Knurek in New York Times
Jeff Knurek (BFA, ‘88) was recently mentioned in the New York Times for his role in crafting a clever 2018 wedding proposal for an anagram-loving couple. Knurek is the illustrator of Jumble, the scrambled-word puzzle, syndicated and found in most daily American newspapers. In Jumble, the players are given an illustrated cartoon of the puzzle’s clue and a set of letter-scrambled words. The players solve the puzzle by reconstructng the words and arranging them at marked positions to spell out the answer, which relates to the accompanying cartoon.
According to the New York Times:
“Paula Acuña, 28, and Aly Jiwani, 31, of Wilmette, Ill., have always enjoyed spending time together working on crossword puzzles and a variety of other anagram-related challenges, including one of their favorites, the Jumble, a game in which a series of words are unscrambled, and circled letters within those words are arranged to form a surprise answer to clues given in an accompanying cartoon. In April, Mr. Jiwani reached out to The Chicago Tribune to say that he wanted to propose to Ms. Acuña in a Jumble he could call their very own.”
Knurek and his collaborator David Hoyt worked with Aly to come up with a custom Jumble to help him pop the question.