2008 Woodie Awards
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Sauer would know. The GW senior, who still remembers smoking his first Cuban cigar when he was 13, said he developed an appreciation for the sophisticated habit when he was in high school. He is now chairman of the Cigar Smokers' Forum, a group of GW students who hold events the first Friday of every month and host a handful of speaker dinners every year.
While most of the club's members are cigar enthusiasts, former chairman Josh Singer was quick to say that the organization is oriented around political discussion and socialization more than smoking. Now a second-year New York University law student, Singer said he wanted to be a part of the organization before he had smoked his first stogie.
"Being around D.C., I saw how social (smoking cigars) was," he said. "It's really part of the culture here."
Singer said he wanted to transform the forum from "guys in the back of a room having cigars" to a political forum and an opportunity for students to a senior, he made his case and was granted funding from GW for his organization.
Thus began the Cigar Smokers' Forum in its current form, though it had existed for years. The group dinners, which consist of an hour of smoking and conversation followed by a roughly 20-minute speech and an extended question-and-answer session, have included speakers ranging from Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry to University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg. Sauer said the speakers are usually cigar smokers who work some discussion of their habit into their speeches.
In addition to Trachtenberg, various University administrators have spoken at the forum.
"My goal was always to bring students and faculty together so that they could interact with each other on a social basis," said Singer, who emphasized that smoking at forum events is not mandatory.
