Looking through a box of Bud Morehead’s slides I found these two glorious shots from the 1951 class election campaign season (note gravel walks!):
Coincidentally, later the same day I was looking through some Threshers from the 1960s and came across the multi-year debate about doing away with the class officers. The switch to the college system had been a bumpy one–many students were unhappy about the change and much of the old way of campus life survived for a while. Elections for class officers were one of those holdovers. Every year beginning in 1964 the Thresher editorialized in favor of dropping these increasingly anachronistic offices, growing more agitated every year by the student body’s refusal to vote them out. Here’s one example, from 1967:
Interestingly, the students never did muster the 3/4 vote necessary to abandon the class officers. They weren’t dropped until 1969 when a wholesale change of the SA constitution needed 2/3 of the student senate instead of three-quarters of the entire student body.
Bonus: An alert reader notices some tender feelings in the Coffee House.
As freshperssons, our class was there at the very beginning of the college system, in April 1957. As far as I can recall, it was well received. I was on campus until graduation with the 5-year B. S. in 1961, and my recollection is that the college system was well established by that time. That is why I was quite surprised to read “The switch to the college system had been a bumpy one–many students were unhappy about the change…” Not my recollection at all.
That makes sense to me. The complaints came from members of the three classes that were already there when you arrived as a freshman.
Granted, but as I read your sentence, the context was Threshers in the 1960’s.
Kodachrome!
Nice windmill and kite…
I guess that means that after zero campaigning and voting for each other, Guy Jackson and I were the last of the class officers. My most critical (and only) duty was to report to Dean Pfeiffer’s office for a 10 minute meeting to vote to keep the alloy for the class rings the same as the year before – just enough gold content, but not so much as to affect the durability of the ring.
I don’t recall Guy having any duties – just a symbolic potentate.
No wonder it died.
Hi Melissa – I confess to being the PAG who wrote the Thresher editorial about class officers, though I cannot remember why we were so worked up about it. I suppose the Thresher staff felt duty-bound to be the anti-establishment faction on campus. In retrospect, it seems ridiculous that, with all the social upheaval of the late 60’s, we were focused on issues like that one. – Phil Garon, Hanszen ‘68