I had to laugh at myself this afternoon. When I first saw this I thought they were verbs and I was very confused. Then I understood that they were nouns and it all cleared up:
Homecoming in 1970 provided quite a few arresting images. It was a very strange time and the pictures reflect it. Here’s the contraption they used to get the older alumni to and from far flung events:
Here’s a class reunion in the faculty club:
And what looks to be a demonstration of some equipment used in the artificial heart project:
(Note to all you old engineers: do you think that’s Hardy Bourland? And where do you think it is?)
And finally we see everyone headed out that old shell road towards the football stadium for the game. I find this image especially haunting, perhaps because of her old fashioned pocketbook. The times they were truly changing.
Bonus:
Ah… the original Rice shuttle bus. I wonder how long that thing had been in use. Although it looks a bit like it could have been a refugee from AstroWorld.
The only person I see that could be Hardy Bourland is the presenter on the left. The poor lighting around him, his facing away from us, and the half head of dark hair make identification challenging.
Perhaps the most haunting thing about the stadium picture is the vast green space in front of the woman with the vintage pocketbook…
It WAS a vast green space in 1970! That’s why that end of campus, in particular, still confuses me when I visit today.
I just realized I didn’t answer the “where is it?” I recall going to a Majors Day show-and-tell in BioEngineering in 1970 or 1971. It was in the northern end of the first floor of Abercrombie. The building was shaped more like a big “E” in those days with the long side facing what would become the Engineering Quad. I don’t recall the artificial heart being part of the program though.
I don’t think that’s Hardy. I don’t recall him ever holding his hands like that.
That 1965 Ford pickup looks like it’s had some hard use to be only five years old. On a hunch, I looked to see if those trams were ever part of Astrodomain and found this picture of the old Colt Stadium being used as a junkyard in 1973. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Stadium#/media/File:Colt_Stadium_junkyard.jpg
So they were probably parking trams for Colt Stadium or the early Astrodome. Or maybe for the then-fairly-new Astroworld, which opened in the summer of 1968. Did Rice own some of those, or just borrow them?
No idea about ownership. I just remember the blue pickup truck dragging the trams around. The trams sure look like the ones in the Colt Stadium photo though.
I see a lot of similarities to the Hardy in “the first picture in “A King Visits Rice”. https://ricehistorycorner.com/2012/06/20/a-king-visits-rice/
I’ll admit I dont recall Hardy positioning his hands like that standing. But I recall seeing something similar as he sat at his desk in Duncan, leaning back in his desk chair.
It could be David Hellums who worked on this project.
I think there’s a good chance that the woman with the purse is Frances Brotzen–the hair, dress, and posture, as well as the man beside her.
I see what you’re saying–it could indeed be Frances.