Fort Hays State University - Reveille Yearbook (Hays, KS)

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By Michele Meckel 9:26. You have four minutes to race to your first class, It’s pouring rain and there ' s not a place to park . . . anywhere. Quickly, you pull off on a side street, park in the yellow zone and sprint to class. The parking problem on the FHS campus was not a new issue. Even though the campus police issued 3,500 parking tickets during the fall semester, students continued to squeeze into the over-full parking lots. There were parking spots for 832 cars on campus. This appeared to be a large number of spaces except there were 1 .450 parking permits issued first semester, which drastically limited the number of spaces available. In explaining this disparity between number of permits issued and parking spaces available, Traffic Control Chief Don Brown said, There’s plenty of parking if people were willing to walk a reasonable distance. No one’s attuned to walking, though. Everybody’s got a car and everybody wants to park right next to the buildings. ' 1 There was plenty of space on the university ' s 4,1 60 acres tor a huge parking metropolis; however, students already had a parking lot with a 600-car capacity. The parking lot at the HPER complex held 600 cars but was seldom used because nobody liked to park there and walk over the bridge. People just plain didn’t like to walk. Well, Fort Hays Staters should consider themselves lucky. We have more parking space at Fort Hays State than any other campus in the state of Kansas, Brown said. At some places the parking lots are located a couple of blocks away from the campus. In addition to the 832 student parking stalls, there were 312 staff parking spots, as well as 12 places for motorcycles, eight visitor spaces in front of Sheridan Colisium, eleven 1 5- minute stalls and ten 30-minute stalls. The grand total of available parking was 1,193 spaces, Brown reported. The nine full-time officers of the traffic department were responsible for the registration of motor vehicles, parking permits and making sure parked cars had the proper identifi- cation. Brown said most parking tickets were issued near the academic square of the campus because students failed to buy permits for parking in this area. The parking permit could be obtained if one lived outside of the area bounded by 17th and Main Street, and carried 26 hours. Then he was eligible for a parking sticker. Permits were issued by the semester and cost $4. The fee was $2 for the summer session and if a student drove a motorcycle, the fee was S2. If a student was physically handicapped or could justify necessity of a vehicle due to unusual circumstances, exceptions to these rules were made. If students thought $4 was a high price to pay, they felt better after discovering the faculty had a registration fee of $8 per semester and $6 for the spring semester.

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The 75th Homecoming activities toasted not only the vitality of three- quarters of a century life, but also a record celebration. The activities were kicked off with the robing of Queen Cindy Shi rack and a tug-of-war across Big Creek Friday afternoon. Later that evening, Bob Hope provided a mono- logue for the Homecoming Concert. Saturday morning downs, balloons, floats and a festive spirit accompanied the Diamond Jubilee Historical Parade. Arranged by decades, entries included 20 floats, 19 bands, a mounted cavalry, a full-size covered wagon, buggies, antique cars and several walking entries. The two-mile caravan summed up the largest parade in Hays’ history. Old Hays City, a float sponsored by the Greeks portraying the frontier days of Hays, won the $1 00 Sweepstakes prize, Both students and a large turnout of alumni filled Lewis Field Stadium for the afternoon football game. However, the overflowing stadium and the unu- sually warm day weren’t enough for the Tigers as they lost to Emporia State, 10-0. To help celebrate the Diamond Jubi- lee Homecoming. Mary Maude Moore, a former music instructor, and 25 of her former students reunited their singing group the tmpromptues. The alumni performed after the game and at two alumni-sponsored dances that night. The large return of alumni, the huge 75th Homecoming parade, and the reunion of many people made Home- coming 77 the celebration it was. 1. During ihe band ' s half-time performance at the Homecoming Game, Mike McCleery, Smilh Center freshman, performs for a packed sta- dium. 2. Tug-of-war contests held over Big Creek proved disastrous for Mike Reynolds. Natoma junior, and Tony Beck, Hutchinson sen- ior, as they pull Ihemselves out of the mucky water, 3, A mounted cavalry rides through Main Street in the longest parade in Hays ' history.

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(f the student failed to register his vehicle properly, he would notice a piece of yellow paper placed neatly under his windshield wiper. This being his first offense, the ticket was only a warning. However, if the student continued to park ille- gally, his second offense would warrant a penalty of $2 and all other offenses would be $2 each. If the student failed to pay his fines at the end of the semester he would not be allowed to re-enroll, graduate or transfer records. In most schools, however, a second ticket was more expensive than the first and the third was still higher. Fort Hays State changed its policy of raising fines and ever since, the collec- tion rates have been good. In addition to campus parking, residence halls had their share of parking problems. Anyone from a residence hall could park in another residence hall ' s lot. This situation was necessary because no residence hall had enough parking space to accommodate ail of its residents. Therefore, segre- gated parking was impossible. We had 300 cars registered for McMindes. Their parking lot had room for 54, Where were you going to put all those people if McMindes ' residents could only park in the McMindes 1 lot? Wiest Hall did not have enough space to hold all its reside nts, Brown said. Then they had 20 stalls reserved for the Psychological Service Center. I ' ve been hearing now that they want to move Student Health over there too; that would be 20 or 30 more stalls. With the destruction of Rarick Hall, the education classes are spread out all over the campus. This also adds to parking prob- lems, Brown stated. At this point, the parking problem looked unsolvable. How- ever. McGrath Hall provided an overflow parking lot. There was parking there. It just boiled down to people not wanting to walk. Yes, Fort Hays State did have a parking problem. For those who insisted on red carpet treatment to the front doors of Albertson or Picken Halls, they were the ones to fight for the empty parking spaces. They used up gas driving around the campus hunting for a sacred parking place in front of their next class building. But for those students who arrived for class early enough for a short walk across campus, parking really was not the problem it was thought to be. You can’t beat the system Convenient parking is the ability to station one’s car within reasonable walking distance of a predetermined destination. To most people, reasonable” means approximately the length of one city block, not one mile. Building a dormitory parking lot with stalls for 60 cars when around 400 car owners live in the dormitory was not an example of convenient parking. Another example of what convenient parking was not, was a McMindes Hall resident who had to park her car in a dark, desolate corner of Wiest parking lot and risk being attacked on her way to McMindes Hall. Convenient parking was not being told over the phone at 4 a.m. that you had mistakenly parked in one of the numerous reserved stalls. Convenient parking meant that a person was able to reach his destination before he: a) was mugged, b) developed frostbite, or c) counted more than 5,000 dividing cracks in the sidewalk. A person could make a quick dash out to a car, instead of a 3-mile hike, if convenient parking was available. Convenient parking was an important term to the students of Fort Hays State. Convenient parking was an ongoing prob- lem and threatened both the physical and mental health of every student involved with campus parking.