Wake Forest University - Howler Yearbook (Winston Salem, NC)

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Lost was mingled with the Ace of Spades, paral- lelograms with a battered chess board, silver nitrate with midnight coffee boiling over a small hotplate. Some just lived, sharing nothing with nobody. But they all lived and studied and planned and worked toward a well-outlined future. Wake Forest was not left behind in this great adventure. The acute housing shortage was tackled by energetic veterans and understanding school officials, with the result that plans were made to permit married veterans to erect surplus army barracks for apartments. During the sum- mer, the college property across from the heating plant and the lots surrounding the tennis courts were given to the cause of Wake Forest ' s own G. I. Town. But problems were not so satisfactorily solved for everyone. There was the Gopher ' s Club, an organization of men who had no place to live. Since they wanted an education, however, they slept in the basement of the new chapel on bunks supplied by the War Assets Administration. A great number of them were veterans — thus the W.A.A. assistance. The first four men to arrive in the lower depths of the new chapel decided to form the organization which came to be known universally as The Gopher ' s Club — boys without rooms, without hot showers, but with double- decker bunks and a limited amount of living space. Back during the good old days of the OPA the Wake Forest meat markets didn ' t have much trouble setting their prices. Washington did it for them. But there came the death of the OPA, and Wake Forest business establishments held the destiny of local pantries in their hands. There came a two-dollar per barrel increase in flour, and we looked longingly toward the corn- fields; there came an eleven cents increase in the price of butter, and we thought respectfully of Grandma and her cow and the screened-in back- porch with the butter churn over in the corner; and there came a 20 per cent increase in meat prices at Miss Jo Williams ' cafeteria, and we sud- denly respected the theories of the vegetarians. But conditions like these were forgotten in mid- July when more than two hundred fraternity men and their dates attended the semi-formal Pan- Hellenic Summer Dance in the Virginia Dare Ball- room of Raleigh ' s Hotel Sir Walter. Most of the same number had swung a leg or two in the Com- munity House the night before at the nickelodeon dance which initiated the gay week-end. Back from the dances and in a more serious frame of mind, the student body settled down to the urgent task of alleviating as much as possible the acute famine conditions over the globe. The executive committee of the college World Relief Fund, under the capable guidance of Elwood Orr, made plans to canvass the student body for con- tributions toward this great relief task of feeding the world — or at least a studious portion of it. The campaign was stimulated by chapel programs and campus posters and front page stories in the Old Gold and Black. And it proved to be a big success — $2,500 worth of success. Wake Forest College and North Carolina Bap- tists were given the chance of a lifetime and took it, wisely and overwhelmingly. The chance came in the form of an endowment fund gift from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation of Winston-Salem. The Reynolds ' offer was made with the provision that the college be moved to Winston-Salem within five to eight years and that the North Carolina Baptists raise an estimated four million dollars needed for the erection of a new plant that will cost around six million dollars. Another gift from the Winston-Salem family was the offer of the Twin City ' s most scenic estate, Reynolda, by Mrs. Mary Babcock, one of the trustees of the Reynolds Foundation. —

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5%£ Sio u otftAe FALL AT WAKE FOREST COLLEGE FALL . . . AND RAILROAD AND BUS STATIONS CROWDED WITH BAGGAGE . . . REUNIONS WITH OLD FRIENDS . . . BAFFLED FRESHMEN DASHING FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE DURING RUSH WEEK . . . NEW STUDENTS AND -WHEELS SIPPING COKES IN THE BOOKSTORE . . . THE LONG LINES AT REGISTRATION . . . FRIDAY NIGHT PEP RALLIES AND THE SNAKE DANCES THROUGH CAMPUS . . . THE CROWDED BUSES GOING TO RALEIGH . . . HOARSE VOICES AFTER EVERY FOOTBALL GAME . . . PILES OF BURNING LEAVES . . . HOMECOMING AND THE HOMECOMING DANCE . . . OPEN HOUSES AFTER FOOTBALL GAMES . . . THE HAY- RIDES TO LAKE MURL . . . THANKSGIVING VACATION COMES AND GOES . . . THE FRATERNITY FORMALS . . . THE CHRISTMAS GLEE CLUB CONCERT . . . CAROLING AROUND THE CAMPUS . . . WINTER APPROACHES . . . EXAMS . . . AND CHRISTMAS VACATION. HE STORY of a year at Wake Forest is always a vivid one to those who have lived it and enlivened it. To some it is a dramatic tale to be often and glow- ingly retold; to others, a laughable yarn, a series of cherished anecdotes. There are few who remem- ber it with bitterness; more, perhaps, who laugh evasively at its mention. But without exception it is a story remembered, clinging to our memories like an unforgotten face. This year ' s narrative is perhaps less character- ized by drama than realism, but we will respond no less to its telling in the chapters ahead, for we all lived it, laughed it — and we remember it. That we may reminisce more eloquently — SUMMER ' S WARM NARRATIVE Long before that bustling September week when transportation terminals bulged with campus - bound collegians, our tale began its unfolding under the heat of a summer sun, and found expression in the intense warmth of a lecture room, during the long afternoon hours of a physics lab. in the prolonged bridge sessions of the dorms. Summer school is more than a mere appendage to the fall and spring terms; it is the vital com- mencement of a new year of college life. Those about whom the story is first concerned are the determined veterans who are making up for time lost and the transfer co-eds who attend classes between swimming pool dates, the pre-meds strug- gling to complete requirements before the fall finds them at med school and the part-time stu- dents who are working their way through. They are the Wake Foresters to whom the last of May does not mean the end of classes and the begin- ning of house parties at the beach. It is with these, then, that we open our narrative — From Maine to New Mexico and Florida to Washington, trailers, huts, and discharged Army barracks invaded the campuses of the nation ' s colleges and universities and formed themselves into compact little communities — G. I. Towns, they were called. Living in these trailers and huts were veterans who had turned from the busi- ness of war to the profession of a higher education. Some lived with their families — and there was a mixture of Tennyson and diapers, the Missouri Compro- mise and clothes pins, logarithms and the aroma of broiled chops, test tubes and cold cream. Some lived as bachelors, sharing ex- penses jointly — and Paradise

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There were more representatives at the record- breaking special session of the Baptist State Con- vention this fall than at any previous convention in the history of the denomination. Though a few were against the move, the overwhelming ma- jority, who were for the progressive chance of a lifetime and for greater furtherance of Christian education, flooded the minority with their approval. And so, Wake Forest College, which has lived quietly but quite potently on the summit of one of Wake County ' s highest hills for these 112 years, smiled broadly but reverently at the new horizons that rose in wholesome challenge before her. A FALL BRISK WITH ACTIVITIES The leaves were still green and full on Wake Forest trees during the second week of last Sep- tember. The sun was still potent enough to make a mid-morning lemonade or a noon coke mighty refreshing. But the night breezes made the leaves and the bushes rustle with the song of approach- ing fall and early morning frost and biting winds around campus buildings. And the new stu- dent body descended suddenly upon Wake Forest. . . . 1,500 students 200 were women and 92 were law It was the largest enrollment at Wake Forest College in her entire history. The ratio was nine to one — nine men to one woman — and Deacon- town took off its belt, put on suspenders, and strained conscientiously to accommodate the heavy enrollment. Nine hundred veterans were the biggest cause for this record-breaking student body. The school of liberal arts had 1.427 stu- dents. 400 students more than had ever been registered in liberal arts before. Of the more than students. It was a determined student body. too. On the first morning of registration a line of applicants strung a fourth of the way around the circular campus. Some aspirants even slept on the cam- pus the night before, in order to be the first in line. It was different from the old days. Men were in a hurry. Two, three, even four and five precious years of their lives had been interrupted by war and general confusion and blood and fear and pain. Now they were back — those who had managed to get back — and they wanted to finish their education and get started in life, a bit late perhaps, but with a full education under their belts. So they stood in line under the September sun and waited anxiously for their turn to register and begin with the ir chemistry and geometry and Life and Teachings of Paul. Far happier is the family where love and respect and mutual consideration prevail, even where some of the children have to sleep on the floor, than the family where comfort is found and there is absence of these cementing ties. Family happiness is rooted in a sense of oneness, in sympathy, in mutual understanding and coopera- tion and appreciation, in a readiness to share in hardships as well as in comforts and ease. . . . These words were spoken to the first assembly of the entire student body last September by our beloved president. Dr. Thurman D. Kitchen. The thoughts gave new and old Wake Forest students a new lease on an old idea that has always pre- vailed on the Deacon campus. His remark, The chief asset of Wake Forest College is the personal interest that characterizes a genuine family circle. was an appropriate send- off for the biggest student body the college has ever supported. It was certainly a time for the ' family circle attitude on the part of students. Long lines, crowded rooming facilities, high prices, tremendous classes played stinging tunes on the key strings of our nervous systems. And our pres- ident knew that the situation could be made a lot less burdensome through the kind of coopera- 15