People can be very surprising. Florence Stancliff ’27, for example, is well known to me as half of the Florence and Fred Stancliff Track Scholarship. I never had any reason to suspect that she was also a circus fanatic. In fact, this still seems inexplicable to me. I came across this information while curled up with a volume of old Sallyports and a glass of wine last weekend. Take a look at the article and I think you’ll agree with me that the Stancliffs really knew how to throw a party. The idea of all the circus folk pulling up to their house on North Boulevard for the evening is boggling. But how great would it be to hang out with the man who gets shot out of the cannon?! I bet he had some wild stories.
Florence was the head of planning for the 1960 Rice Day, which inevitably (I guess) became a circus:
Coincidentally I happen to have a couple of pictures of her and her colleagues that are labeled “planning for 1960 Rice Day.” That’s her on the right, smiling gleefully with her slip showing:
And this might even be Fred Stancliff ’26 with her here:
Bonus: It was a glorious day on campus. Windows and doors flung open everywhere.
