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

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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

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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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tion and understanding and sympathy and patience that is found only in a -family circle. We put his advice into practice, and it worked. And the old Wake Forest spirit continued to live in a world of postwar confusion and ultra- materialism. Little did the northern truck drivers realize how much their strike of last fall would affect the textbook situation. Wake Forest, like other colleges and universities all over the nation, opened her doors in September with the handicap of an acute book shortage hanging over her head. Every department in the college experienced the shortage in varying degrees, the language and law departments receiving the slightest blow from the handicap. Many students did a great deal of their work out of lecture notebooks, taking notes on each hour lecture and depending on those to get them through. Books weren ' t the only necessities lacking in the lives of Deacon students last fall. There was a shortage of the old-fashioned kind cf eating place into which one can go and choose his meal without having to stand in impossibly long lines. But conscientious souls went to work to alleviate the problem. Shorty Joyner ' s hamburger shop was remodeled and turned into a more modern eating place with short orders in breakfast and lunch foods as a specialty, and the College Soda Shop promised the opening of a new grill which would feature grill style short orders. A few of the fraternities solved the food prob- lem by opening their own dining rooms. Among these were the Delta Sigma Phi, the SPE, and the AKPi and PiKA frats, the last two patronizing the Delta Sig dining hall. In order to provide necessary additional class- room space, the Alumni Building was taken over by the English and Physics Departments for the first time since December of 1942. It was a sort of coming home party for the two departments, for they had lived there for many years before the war. Their homecoming meant new and needed space for the Modern Language Depart- ment and the Chemistry Department. Everyone was looking everywhere for space, and more space. And in that hunt for space came again the hous- ing situation, which was acute. Boys were crammed three to a room in Simmons Dormitory fraternity sections, and the attics were cleaned out and made livable. The new chapel and Hunter Dormitory and Bostwick Hall were no less crowded. Nearly a hundred men bunked in the basement of the new chapel with the other Gophers. And the attic of Hunter and the basement of Bostwick were made more colorful and a bit more feminine by the presence of Wake Forest co-eds. The village homes were just as crowded, and many students were forced to commute from Youngsville and Raleigh. But they all managed to get to class each day, and every new day was one more milestone on their road to an advanced education. And that was and is what they ' re after. For the married students there were trailers and prefab houses and the forty-six apartments erected on the quadrangle surrounding the tennis courts. This project, begun during the middle of August, was to last well into spring — the delay being due to the shortage of material and labor. Former CCC barracks from Camp Butner were obtained for the project through the efforts of col- lege officials aided by Fred Williams, a local attorney. The buildings were one-story, prefabricated structures that were erected by the vets them- selves and assigned on a priority basis, with those who had put in the most number of hours of work getting the first choice.