Bethany College - Bethanian Yearbook (Bethany, WV)

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OCTOBER. 1940 l bitot5 on tke 0(impu5 . . QUEST FOR VERSE LECTURER A BETTER ACTRESS ' liL-n Miss Elissa L.indi made a short visit to Bethany ' s campus Oc- tober 3 to lecture she did not give the impression of being a snooty stage or motion picture star. Neither was she a moody playwright. She could easily have been either as she has played in some thirty film pro- ductions, many stage presentations, and has also written two plays and five books. through the crowd with a pen and autograph book. Asked if an actress can ever get away from acting. Miss Landi re- pl.ed, A true actress, yes; a ham, no. She went on to explain that those who act all the time are mere- ly fulfilling a desire to show off— leaking at the seams, she called it — ,ind if thev would get inti. some activity that would satisfy Ac riiS i iisJ UiuU jijjH.ri i Hir u for Miriam Co mhi Bn ),.A:ir Miss Landi ' s audience was amused at her arithmetic when she esti- mated the distance between the rear row and the stage of an ancient Greek theater but more than for- gave her when she illustrated a f)oint by recreating a scene between herself and a Russian woman just learning to speak English. At a short informal reception al- ter the lecture, Miss Landi sat and answered questions for a group of admiring students who clustered around her. When asked what ques- tion she was asked the most she said, What do you like the best, stage or screen? then lisping into baby-talk added, May I have your autograph. Miss Landi? Two min- utes later a newspaperman from Wheeling asked her the first ques- tion just as a little girl pushed that desire they would not be put- ting on an act all the time. Miss Landi also tried to be help- ful to students interested in writ- ing. When asked How do you go about writing a play? What idea comes first, the plot, the theme, or the characters? she did not hesi- tate. Oh, the characters, of course, she said, and then went in- to detail. A writer should always be looking for things that show character in people, some little characteristic or incident that tells just what sort of a person he or she might be, how he or she would re- act to certain situations. Imagina- tion begins to weave those situa- ations into a plot, suspense is weaved into scenes to give drama, a theme may slide in, and there you are with a story. POET MAY SARTON ' Wrote a Victory Sovg for Bethany (Sec page 1!) When Miss May Sarton, young American poet, came to Bethany to visit and lecture, she soon made it obvious that her trip was no com- mercial matter but an adventure. Although her father is a distin- guished professor teaching the His- tory of Science at Harvard, Miss Sarton, never attended an Ameri- can college, having lived half her life abroad, and considers her tour a chance to get an unbiased view of American college life. He lectures are merely to provoke discussion, to draw out poems and plans for poems, to talk over creative prob- lems with students and teachers of poetry. Her big aim seems to stim- ulate college students to write poetry. Claiming that a poem is the per- fect fusion of an emotional experi- ence and a mastery of technique. Miss Sarton gave much advice to writers: study the best in the older poets, do not try to publish immedi- ately, do not let rejections discour- age you, write on subject you really know intimately, search for the right image for your idea, look long and intently at your subject, make subject demand the form, not the form the subject. Miss Sarton ' s Bethany audience enjoyed her four poems which she read to them Sunday evening, Octo- ber 13, especially the last one which had no political significance. The first three did, and were, by her own admission, not her best. The audi- ence differed however concerning her ability as a poetry critic. I ' AGF TWELVE

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OCTOBER. 1940 TALKIES LEARN TO TALK operator Date HittitUwrgcr luijiisis new motion pii iirr projector- Bethanians who for 14 years groaned in their Friday night movie seats because they could not under- stand half of what the leading man was whispering to the leading lady, have now begun to ease back m their seats, partially convmced that Com- mencement Hall does contain new motion picture equipment. Musicals, once taboo because the old rebuilt projectors and wheezy sound system could not reproduce high notes, bass notes, or the flow of overtones in a full orchestra, can now be booked with the assurance that they will be at least listenable. But don ' t expect wonders, warns House Manager Strasser, because Commencement Hall ' s high Gothic walls and low balcony were not designed to throw electrically creat- ed sound waves clearly. Built for a commercial theater seating 1,800, the equipment is more than adequate for the Hall, where an audience of only 600 would bring out the SRO signs. Complete RCA sound equipment, with double amplifiers, an attach- ment for playing phonograph re- cords, and four large speakers, were in the purchase. So large are the conical black plywood speakers that only two need be used to direct the sound from behind the new screen. The speakers can be wired either singly or in a series. Conceivably, one of the speakers might be mount- ed in Phillips Hall lounge, another in Cochran Hall lounge, a third in the gymnasium, and Bethanians in each of the three places could dance to records played in the projection booth. Other items in the purchase that rejuvenated movie-going on the campus are two Simplex projectors with lOYz inch reflectors in the lamp housings, 30 ampere rectifiers and two four-inch lenses. FIRST PLAY TO BE COMEDY Docs the selection of You Can ' t Take It With You , as the first stage play of the year indicate an- other gala year for Bethany thea- ter-goers? Last year. Miss Marian Hendrick, then an enthusiastic newcomer to Bethany, wore thin the boards on Commencement Hall ' s stage with a succession of plays that included Night of January 16th , Personal Appearance , Death Takes a Holi- day , and a dozen one act plays or excerpts from plays. A Bethespian production, You Can ' t Take It With You depicts the absurd, almost slapstick, situa- tions into which a joyously eccentric family of New Yorkers allows itself to drift. No matter how well cast the play will be, upperclassmen are sure to miss actor Thomas Jones, who this year is studying his drama at Car- negie Tech. As well as other Alpha Psi Omega ' s Ruth Braem and Lillian Henkle, transferred and gradu.-.ted, respectively. The cast contains Joanne Schott as Penelope Sycamore, Rita Cleary as Essie, Mimi Strain as Rheba, Ro- bert Fulmer as Paul Sycamore, Jack Baumgartner as Mr. De Pinna, Ger- ald Ferguson as Ed, Delivan Barn- hart as Martin Vanderhof, Mar ' Louise Sessler as Alice, Roy Heckel as Henderson, Jim Huntsberger as Tony Kirby, Charles Bell as Kolen- kov, Jane Edmunds as Gay Welling- ton, George Davis as Mr. Kirby, Jane Campbell as Mrs. Kirby, Sara Gelof as Olga. Peggy Geyer is assist- ant director. X ' ulfLica.tloni DEBT BURDENS MAGAZINE Publications, which at Bethany means the Bcfbaiiian, has a bother- some dog nipping at its heels. The dog is labeled debt. Loosed on the magazine by two previous Bethan- ians, the mutt became a real threat a month ago when Bursar Newton W. Evans said that Debt must be appeased. On the college ledger, Bcthauiau ' s account, in red, amounts to more than $45 0.00. And Bursar Evans rightfully claims that publications has reached its debt limit, must now stop adding to the debt and start slicing it down. Faced with these red figures, Betluuiiau, like any sensible corpora- tion, decided to cut expenses and in- crease revenue during 1940-41, ap- plying part of the savings to the debt. Money spent by the Bcfhaniaii goes almost entirely to four places: cover company, photographer, engraver, and printer. Contracts this year give the money respectively to S. K. Smith Co., Chicago; Zamsky Stu- dios, Philadelphia; Robert Raws- thorne Co., Pittsburgh; Carnegie Union Printing Co., Carnegie, Pa. First step toward financial stabil- ity, cutting expenses, meant merely spending less at several or all of the companies producing the magazine. Largest savmg is being made on covers, which had taken too high a percentage of the total budget in 193 8 and 1939. Cover-binders cost approximately 72c apiece last year, while Bi ' hanian for this year limit- ed itself to 46c apiece for covers. Contracts for the three major serv- ices were all substantially lower than either of two previous years. Second step toward financial stability, increasing revenue, came with nearly a 100 percent increase in extra subscriptions over 1939. This was the result of a planned direct mail campaign. Advertising, other major source of income, will amount to at least $700.00 or else Business Manager Wayne Burdue gets no full schol- arship. This new idea was submitted to the SBOG by the business man- ager himself. (Continued on Page 17) PAGE ELEVEN

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OCTOBER, 1940 llllllll FRATERNITIES PLEDGE After a hectic Rush X ' eek of many dinners, Uttle sleep, a few tears, and much satisfaction, Beth- any ' s five fraternities and four sororities added the following to their rolls as pledges: Alpha Xi Delta: Eleanor Achter- man, Ellajane Bishop, Jane Camp- bell, Susan Carnahan, Betty Elder, Jean Goe, Mary Jane Heifer, Mar- jorie Hunter, Dorothy Ralston, Miriam Reno, Betty Shadle, Betty Shaffer, Gwendolyn Taylor, Shir- ley Tidwell, Suzanne Wood. Kappa Delta: Gloria Broderson, Virginia Downes, Betty Field, Mar- jorie Haines, Betty Lou Hood, Eve- lyn Jones, Betty Salmon, Betty Lou Stafford, Nina Jean Stone, Frances Thomas, Gertrude Whitney, Blanche Peters. Phi Mu: Margaret Abel, Gloria Bass, Margaret Blanck, Mar - Lou Dcmres, Eleanor Gilmore, Jean Mac- Leod, Ruth Rutherford, Mary Louise Smith, Martha Stuart. Zeta Tau Alpha: Betty Mae Ad- dleman, Jean Belknap, Mary Vir- ginia Bolton, Marjorie Campbell, Miriam Cox, Margaret Flatley, Jean Goodwin, Patricia Harvey, Elinore Hetherington, Ruth Hutton, Mar- tha Kittle, Jacqueline Knobloch, Jane Land, Jane Linn, Lois Linn, Betty Grace Love, Barbara Noel, Jane Mayers, Ruth Rial, Rosemary Stewart, Jeanne Styer, Eleanor Throckmorton, Jennie Umbel, Peg- INTERESTING BETHANIAN ROBERTS AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT Dick Roberts is a feller who writes like this here about feetsball and sich. In spite of his classical background (ahem!) — five years of Latin to keep him from turning out journalese — quite enjoys talking down to the rest of us farmers. Besides being Prof Roberts ' little son, he is also his pappy ' s walking experi- mental education laboratory. Why does Dick, a journalism major, take such killers as ph ' sics and math? Because then when he grows up he will have his brain all exercised without learning the names and addresses of all the people in the telephone book. Dick is interesting not onlv to his father, but also to us as a note of color on the campus. Though he writes like Mortimer Snerd, fresh from the country with the hay still in his hair, Dick is quite the boy in such organizations as the football team (understatement, we hear the team is the organization.) For his whizzy work in the game against W. J. Dick was given French fried potatoes, a bucket of milk, and Ivory soap, his favorite food. UICK ROBERTS gy Wallace, Jane Walls, Shirley Weatherwax, Mary Jane Weir. Alpha Kappa Pi: Dean Cousel- man, Joseph Ducoeur, Franz Rohr. Beta Theata Pi: Donald Brink- worth, Donald Boyd, Jack Baum- gartner, Arthur Beard, Robert Ful- mer, William Halley, Roy Heckel, Byron Henderson, Ted Herrick, John Weimer, William Yauch, Wil- liam Young. Kappa Alpha: Fred Albrecht, William Dowler, James Drum, Ro- bert Frontz, Orion Keylor, Thomas Peterson, Robert Stealey, Donald Young. Phi Kappa Tau: George Bartram, Bruce Beck, Albert Cerveris, Jack Cicco, Dick Colan, William Culli- son, Frank Donics, James Duff, Charles Ford, Robert Husband, Sam McCutcheon, Edward Shriner, Jjck Wright. Sigma Nu: Robert Alexander, James Barnes, Charles Browne, Ro- bert Craig, Richard Glass, Robert Golbey, Charles Foy, Raymond Le- Strange, Creighton Murphy, Harry Murphy, Steve Nunn, James Sem- bower, Thomas Willoughbv. Left: Three freshnuit coeJs Jress up for ranhelleuic Tej Jnring Rush XCeek- Right: Signtit Nit Cowmavder Edward Ehas er jots douit smoker apfioiittmerlfs uhile Stophel looks on. PAGE THIRTEEN