Grinnell College - Cyclone Yearbook (Grinnell, IA)

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I ntroduction - Here at last, after a twenty-year delay, is the Grinnell College Yearbook of 1966. But the reader is hereby forewarned. This is not the college yearbook that you may have been expecting for the past two decades. College annuals traditionally follow a set pattern - smiling portraits ofdeterminedly extroversive admin- istrators to serve as the frontispiece, sentimental and prettified shots of the campus which are largely unrecognizable to the inhabitants of that campus, unsmiling portraits of determinedly introversive faculty neatly compartmentalized into disciplines, and column after column of unusually still life pictures of graduating seniors surrounded by margins wide enough to accommodate the inscription of such immortal sentiments as iiGood luck, Chuck, Good-bye. Betsy, I love ya,., and uThink of me whenever you chug-aalug a brewn a totally predictable bits of Americana which end up gathering dust on attic shelves along with commemorative Worldls Fair plates and bronzed baby shoes. This is not that kind of book. Nor is it. as some may have hoped during these long years of waiting, the sensational exposure ofthe underside ofcollege life that the brouhaha over the college's refusal to publish the book in 1967 seemed to have promised. There is little here to appeal to prurient interests, no nudity tnot even the carefully staged and draped shower scenes which are obligatory for most college annualsi, very little sophomoric crudity that passes as college wit, n0 shots of torrid embraces on sorority steps or in dormitory doorways which are used to enliven some college yearbooks. It is not that kind of book, either. It is simply what the title states: Grinnell College - 1966. a single short year in the life of a small institution in the Midwest. But as the contents graphically demonstrate, it is a remarkable record of what we can now see in retrospect was a remarkable year. The photographs by Henry Wilhelm, John Phillips, and Bob Hodieme are of a quality which alone would give distinction to this book and make it truly outstanding among college annuals. In Wilhelmls design and editing of the book. there are carefully and aesthetically planned pictures juxtaposed with unplanned and spontaneous candid shots to provide the vitality of variety so often lacking in such publications. There is also a variety of moods expressed in these photographs - the warmth of com- panionship that a young couple experiences while standing barefoot in a recently plowed farm f ield outside of town, starkly contrasted with the cold loneliness of death as it exits on a stretcher at night from an old menis nursing home adjacent to the campus. The poignancy of these captured moments penetrates deeply and leaves a permanent scar of remembrance. Many of the pictures need and have no captions. What text there is generally avoids the purple passages so precious to most college editors. The prose by Wilhelm and John Wolf is lean and tough. At times, it has the detached objectivity of an anthropologist commenting upon the curious rituals of an alien people. liFreshman initiation at Grinnell is a hanger-on of some of the primitive traditions and idiocies of college life. It takes various forms, some of which are psychologically rather brutal to the new studentfi Or consider the abrupt summary con- clusion t0 the section on the Homecoming football game. It calls that annual ritual a peculiar combination of hysteria and violence. ii If the captions are terse, they are not devoid of occasional flashes of humor and the more frequent acerbic bite of editorial comment. For example, the caption for pictures of a water fight between two of the menis halls reads simply, This is hall spirit at its finest hour? And for the caption under the picture of the crowning of the Homecoming queen, the notation: Jerry Goddard, student government president; Mary G. J ones. alumni secretary; and Glenn Leggett, the new college president, all made short, iiTelevant speeches befitting the occasion. i Even more than the quality ofthe pictures and the pithiness of their captions, however, it is the overall concept and structure of this book which distinguish it from college annuals of that time. Grinnell College - 1966 makes no attempt to achieve that all- inclusive personnel coverage which most yearbooks seek. Not every college administrator and faculty member is given picto- rial recognition and a captioned title. Even more surprising was the decision not to portray every senior tnot to mention every junior or underclass student at the collegey - a failure which most college editors would consider inexcusable if only for reason of violating a sacred marketing principle for yearbooks. But ifthis book is highly selective in personnel coverage, it is far more inclusive than most of its genre in its institutional coverage. It does what I have not seen any other college annual do. It places the college in the larger context of the small Midwestern town and the rural environment within which the college exists. Most college publications, be they admissions brochures, catalogs, or yearbooks, encapsulate and isolate the institution from its immediate surroundings. The college or university becomes truly an ivory tower or at best an enclave Hoating rootless in its own ethereal space. This book is concerned with the larger community in which the students. faculty, and staff must perforce live. Indeed, I find that some of the most compellingly interesting photographs are those of the town and country, rather than those of the campus: a country Grange hall framed by American elm trees tyes, there were still elm trees in Grinnell in 1966; downtown Grinnell on a rainy night portrayed by photography that equals that of Peter Bogdanovichis The Last Picture Show in its stark, lonely realism; the straight, surgical scars of Interstate 80 cutting across the rounded belly of the Iowa countryside; a motelis YES

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Entire Contents Copyright 0D 1966 and 1986 by Henry Wilhelm. John Phillips. and John Wolf All Rights Reserved Additional copies 0fthis book may be ordered from: Grinnell College Bookstore Grinnell College PO. Box 805 Grinnc11.10wa 50112-0810 Telephone: 515-236-2545 Printer: BlaCk-on-gray duotoncs Hascr-scanned. ZOO-line screem and printing by Pcpco Litho. Inc. Cedar Rapids, Iowa Text paper: Warren Lustro Gloss. 1001b. S. D. Warren Company, A Division of Scott Paper Company Boston. Massachusetts A stable. 10ng-1asting. coated book paper. pH97.8: buffered with a minimum of 29c calcium carbonate Endleaves: Archivart Standard Endlcaf Paper Process Materials Corporation Rutherford. New Jersey pr 8.0; buffered with a minimum of 30er calcium carbonate Binding: Acid-pHrcc Binders Board The Davey Company Jersey City. New Jersey pHAa7.5;a1kalinc buffered Covering: Arrestox C. an ucrylic-imprcgnated. pyroxylin-frce cotton binding fabric Joanna Western Mills Company Kingsport. Tennessee Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilhelm. Henry Gilmer. 1943- Grinnell College. 1966. 1. Grinnell College 5 Students 9 Pictorial works. 1. Phillips. John. 1945- 11. Title. LD2055.G54W55 1986 3787771596 85-17196 Book Manufactured in U.S.A.

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To protest the banning of Grinnell College- 1966 by President Glenn Leggett, the book's photographers, Henry Wilhelm and John Phillips, and the editor of the college newspaper, Krystyna Neumun, picketed the college commencement exercises May 26, 1967. The entire editorial staff of the college newspaper resigned in protest of the college's handling of the yearbook situation, and the newspaper ceased publication. IsEm- a -- A WAYS mm 355W? -