When a newspaper story doesn’t conclude on the same page it begins, comedian Brian Regan doesn’t finish it. 

“They never wrap up a story on the front page, and I’m never curious enough to go inside to find out how anything ever ends,” Regan said on his latest DVD, “The Epitome of Hyperbole.” 

If the last line of the front page story says: “And after a nine year trial the jury finally came in with a verdict of … continued on page 22, column C,” Regan decides, “I guess I’ll never know.”

Regan performs at the Cheyenne Civic Center at 7:30 p.m. Thursday for his national concert tour. The venue is at 510 W. 20th St. and tickets are $36.

Having two Comedy Central DVD specials on sale and headlining sold-out theaters since 2005, Regan’s success has built up over a nearly three-decade long standup comedy career without mass exposure through TV or film until now. 

Raised in Miami, Regan went to a small college in Ohio. There, he “studied nothing.” He couldn’t decide on a major other than ruling out economics, communication and theater arts. 

But in speech class he would try making the class laugh, he said, and doing it for a living sounded better than getting up early for a regular job. 

He was poor, like any college student. Maybe some students can relate with this scenario: waking up in the evening and running across campus to get Salisbury steak dinner before the dining hall closed, because he had no money for food. 

After college he moved back to Florida, where he first began performing in comedy clubs. 

“When you first start, you’re playing places like Bob’s Fish House. People are watching TV and you have to compete with cartoons,” Regan said. 

In the early days he spent time in Greyhound buses and beater cars, Regan said. But now, it’s one-night theaters and a tour bus. 

“You have a number of milestones throughout a career. Life is good. I don’t have any complaints. I paid a lot of dues along the way, but I’ve enjoyed the ride,” Regan said.

He isn’t the only comedian in his family of eight siblings. He shares the profession with one brother, and the remaining siblings also paired up in careers: two teachers, two firefighters and two salesmen. 

“I grew up on an arc, two by two,” Regan joked.

Since he began in 1981, Regan has lived in New York City and Los Angeles. He now lives in Las Vegas with his wife, their 9-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. 

Outside his career, Regan’s interests lay with his family. “I enjoy being a daddy. It’s nice because it puts things in perspective,” Regan said.

His wife sometimes serves as a test audience for jokes. 

“It’s nice to say a new idea out loud. She’s always cool and realizes she’s hearing jokes. But I put her in this unbelievably difficult situation where she’s not discouraging, but the joke isn’t where she can laugh at it yet,” Regan said. 

And what makes an experienced comedian laugh? For Regan, it’s normal people. 

“Some people have an ability to be funny, and it’s not what they say. The kind of person who is innately funny to the spine,” Regan said.

It also amuses him when fans pirate one of his DVDs and then ask him to sign it. 

He’s glad people are interested enough to think, “‘I might like to own it … or download it illegally.’

“It would be like the DVD of a movie being sold as you walk out of a theater into the lobby,” Regan laughed.

The show in Cheyenne is Regan’s first performance in Wyoming. 

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Eleven University of Wyoming music students will be recognized today at the Department of Music’s Chair’s Honor Convocation for their exceptional performances during the fall semester.

The recital, which is slated to feature five solo student performances, will begin at 1:10 p.m. today in the Fine Arts Center concert hall. 

Dr. Theresa Bogard, interim chairman of the UW Department of Music, said today’s show will be a continuation of Jan. 22’s convocation, where nine of the 11 students performed four duet and two solo pieces.

The 11 students selected to perform for the convocation recitals is as follows: Sandy Collins (brass), Yu Zhang (keyboard), Meng Xu (keyboard), Sean Francis (percussion), Artur Tumajyan (strings), Alex Minier (strings), Jennifer Erickson (vocal arts), Brianne Roney (vocal arts), Erik Stratton (vocal arts), Anne Schatz (vocal arts) and Daniel Shineberg (woodwinds).

At the conclusion of the fall semester, Bogard said the faculty in each area of the music department (vocal arts, brass, etc.) chose the top music students to perform in the convocation based on either their jury score or other public performances during the semester, such as auditions or recitals. 

Collins, the lone representative of the brass section, said each semester, all music majors are required to perform in front of a jury, which consists of four to six music faculty members.

For the jury session, which accounts for a whopping 50 percent of the major’s final grade, she said the students perform a number of pieces they had been working on all semester, ranging from solo pieces, orchestral excerpts or technical scales. She further explained that the jury usually consists of “the student’s studio teacher, the head of the instrumental section and other faculty members from the same section.”

Overall, Francis, who performed his snare drum solo during Jan. 22’s recital, said he was honored to be selected for the convocation simply because of who chose him and their reasons were for doing so.

“I think having instructors select me means quite a lot more than hearing one of my friends tell me that I did a really great job,” he said. “That sounds terrible, but I think the professors here are very honest, sometimes to a fault. To win their approval is certainly a huge accomplishment.”

Roney, who also took the stage Jan. 22 to perform a vocal piece, expressed many of the same sentiments as Francis.

“It was an honor to be chosen to sing in the honor’s convocation as I was chosen based upon my performance in my jury from last semester,” she said. “To me, if I was chosen, it means that I had a successful semester of lessons, which gives me confidence in my progress as a singer and musician.”

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