"Library Cracks Down on Delinquents"

This headline just in from sometime around 1959 or 1960, courtesy of "The FACT," an underground (and undated) student newsletter that the archives has two issues of. Some rather amusing pieces, and some perhaps of the "you had to be there" variety :-) If any writers or creators of this humorous newsletter would care to step forward and claim the credit due them the archivist will gladly note them in the record, as they only used their initials in the original!

Please note that in today's more enlightened era, library overdue fines have been eliminated ;-)

"Returning Home, 1961:" Guys and Dolls Continued...

Below is a great photo Andy Nazzaro, a member of the troup, shared with the archives of some of the students who performed on the 1961 European tour of this Brockport College theater production. The students who went on the trip were as follows, according to a news article of the day. Please advise the archivist, Charlie Cowling (ccowling@brockport.edu)  of any corrections or additions. Help identifying the people in the photo below would be great too! So far I know that the student in the second row on the right is Bert Mann.

• Timothy Ames, Alfred Blau, Annette D'Amato,  James Denio, Michael Humphreys, Ronald Kryzan, Bert Mann, Peter Ogren, Marolyn Piersma, Madeline Pitella,  Carmen Rivoli, Patricia Sincock,  Diane Spinelli,  Patricia Synder, Judith Wade,    and Dr. Louis Hetler, faculty advisor.

"Guys and Dolls," the 1961 European Tour

Yes, that's right, in the fall of 1961 a group of Brockport students took their production of Damon Runyon's "Guys and Dolls" on the road - in Europe! The original Brockport production had been in 1960, and in 1961 the college was invited to select a group of student performers who would take the show on the road in Europe to American military bases under the auspices of the USO.

The college accepted the invitation and Professor Louis Hetler, Director of Theater at Brockport, took charge of the trip. Due to Defense Department rules on group travel, the original cast number had to be reduced to sixteen actors, the faculty director and a student pianist. The sets had to be made such that they would be transportable in footlockers, and many other hurdles had to be overcome.

The group set out October 9, 1961, for a seven week tour. They played for American service men and women at a number of military bases, and were able themselves to take in some of the culture of Germany and France. They also experienced some Cold War tensions, their bus being held up for over an hour at the infamous "Check Point Charlie" in Berlin, which was split at the time between the Russians and other former Allies.

Your archivist would love to hear from anyone who went on this trip, who might have stories to tell and photographs to share! Contact Charlie Cowling at ccowling@brockport.edu. or call him at 585-395-5667.

Freshman Year, 1942-1943

This blog mentioned earlier that we have a scrapbook that was made by Betty Evershed (Weidel) '46. Below is Betty along with the rest of "Section D" of the freshmen class that year. (She is in the second row, second from left.) It was a bigger class than the previous few years with more than one hundred students entering that fall. (Which seems very small by today's standards, with our freshman classes running 900 or so, but not nearly as many people went to college then, and schools like Brockport were much smaller than today.)  Some of the events they had to look forward to were Orientation Day, a Bonfire and Rally in the "Village Park,"  Juniors in Charge, an All-College Sing, and an All-College Mixer in the gym, Seniors in Charge.

 Sounds like fun doesn't it? :-)

Freshman Hazing

College students of today associate hazing with Greek letter societies, but in years past hazing of freshman by the upper classmen was a common thing in college life. Usually the hazing was a set period, a week or two at the beginning of school, and was intended as a sort of fun welcome and ice breaker for new students. The practice was carried on at Brockport from at least the 1920s up into the mid 1960s. Here are the "Freshman Ten Commandments" from the 1929 Saga Yearbook:

1. Thous shalt only use the basement door.


2. Thous shalt learn all verses of the Alma Mater.


3. Thou shalt greet all upper classmen.


4. Thou shalt use no cosmetics.


5. Thou shalt carry a washcloth - wet.


6. Thou shalt wear a large sheet of white drawing paper with a large green question mark six inches high and thy full name written across the bottom. These shall be worn about thy gawky necks.


7. Thou shalt, oh ye dogs of the male species, adorn thy stretchy necks with winged collars.


8. Thou shalt show thyself in knickers above thy knees to disclose thy ugly calves.


9. Thou shalt adorn thyselves with such decorations as a large green tie beneath thy baby chin.


10. Thou shalt obey all said commandments until 7:30 P.M. October 2.

Lost wedding ring mystery

A wedding ring, plain gold, probably a man's ring by the size, with an inscription of "N.S. to W.M., 8/2/1958" was found a few years ago in the college fitness center. The director of the center has tried other avenues of tracking down the owner of the ring with no success, and has contacted your blogger, who is the college archivist, to try to find the owner of the ring. If these initials or date remind of you of someone or you have information about the ownership of this ring please contact Charlie Cowling at ccowling@brockport.edu.

Betty Evershed Weidel '46

The archives has a wonderful scrapbook a student kept of her experiences here in the 1940s. Betty Evershed (Weidel) '46 included snapshots of her friends, places they lived, things they did, flyers, notices, stories from campus events and activities and much more. It really is a remarkable record of one student's experience here at that time. The only thing is that we don't have much information on Betty and her life subsequent to graduating from Brockport. She was from Rochester, trained as a teacher here, and lived at one time in Webster, but that's all we know really. The archivist is planning on scanning her scrapbook and making it available through this blog as well as in other ways, but if you know anything about Betty your information would be most welcome. Email the archivist, Charlie Cowling, at ccowling@brockport.edu. Thanks so much!