I mentioned a little while ago that I’d found a bunch of interesting band photos. Those rascals have been up to mischief of one sort or another since the band was formed and it seems that there was often a camera around.
This beauty is labeled “1975.” (Not Rice’s best season, by the way.) I didn’t realize until I scanned it and blew it up that there’s a pig in the shot. Based on this and the lack of shoes on the band members (subtle!), I can only conclude that this was the Arkansas game.
Bonus: While looking for a picture of Hamman Hall’s front door I was reminded of how many new views were created by putting Brockman (the new physics building) in between Hamman and George R. Brown.
Somewhere there must be photos taken in that same period of Rice girls mocking the LSU Golden Girls drill team during a half-time. The Rice girls wore saddle oxfords, dark rimmed glasses, hair in pigtails, slide rules dangling from their belts. During their routine the MOB formed various mathematical curves: sine, cosine, etc
Wouldn’t that have been the Baylor Golden Girls?
I doubt it. The LSU Golden Girls were iconic.
Grungy probably has that and many more. Not to be outdone, the 1980 SMU game mocking SMU’s “Best Dressed Band In The Land.” The entire band, men and women, wore dresses. Since I’m kind of a big guy, it was sort of a challenge finding a dress. I had to identify a female friend who seemed to be about the right height (above average for a woman) and then ask to borrow a dress. Because it seemed like it might fit _me_. Thank you, Lynn Broady Abramson, for being a good sport. I guess band guys all over Rice were doing the same thing.
I’m curious whether that 1975 show at the Arkansas game is the one where the MOB got loudly booed by the Razorback fans when the pig panicked and began squealing loudly.
That should be Ed Pierce with the piglet. It squealed all the time if I remember properly.
and Phil Rosegrant petting it …
The other way around, I believe. I think that’s Phildo with the glasses and the “15” shirt, and Ed touching the piglet.
The twirler on the left is Suzan McCorkle (Hindman)(Jones 1977), whose daughter Melissa was a recent Rice cheerleader (Lovett 2005).
The drummer with the beard who is partially obscured by Susan’s left arm is Dana Blankenhorn.
The drum major, with the white pants (recently donated that uniform to the Woodson), who is between the bass drummer and the tri-tom player is Paul Reinhardt (most likely) or Mike Fowler. His hair looks blonder, so I’m thinking it’s Paul.
The drummer with the white hat on, toward the left, is Becky Smith, who was a UH student (and her mother was my high school junior-year history teacher).
I believe the trumpet player two to the right of Ed’s butt is Roger Dannenberg, now a professor at Carnegie-Mellon.
The trumpet player who is a head taller than the rest of the line (and we can only see his head) is Kip Daniel, who is now an architect in Dallas.
The trumpet player with the white hat that’s between Ed and Roger is Gary (something).
He was a student of Kim Soo in karate, had a black belt, was a member of the Rice karate club, and was one of the few people who walked out of the stadium by himself, right after the end of the ’73 A&M game. He didn’t feel a need to wait for the Food Service trucks.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this picture before.
This show is special in my memory as quite possibly the worst we ever did, in terms of the jokes and the audience reception.
James M. – you’ve nailed this.
The piglet was colored blue for the show, and was lead onto the field, where it froze in terror.
There was an attendant with a broom and a dust-pan-on-a-stick to clean up any messes, and said attendant nudged the pig on the butt with the broom to try to get it to move, at which point the pig squealed very loudly in protest (and still didn’t move).
The audience booed mightily, and the booing included the Rice fans.
Many memorable things were said about this response, which I cannot repeat in this public forum, but they are cherished memories.
I was wondering recently if you had any pictures of the pig. Ed and I owned the pig for 1 week. We bought it at an livestock auction somewhere west of Houston on a Wednesday (I think) and kept it on campus until we sold it the following week at the same auction. The normal auction participants were quite entertained when we explained who were and why we needed a pig for the Arkansas game.
Does your collection have any photos of the bicycle show? I think that was in 1977? I was in that show. Riding a bicycle on Astroturf was a unique experience. As was seeing someone trailer their string bass lashed onto a hand truck.