Occidental College - La Encina Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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giant humor of the production as artistic a thing as has been played in the Greek Bowl. Assum- ing the role he once so enjoyed as drama critic, the editor pauses to fling orchids for charac- terization to Roy Littlejohn as Falstaff and Willow Bray and Lita Houston as the merry wives. WTien into the rich but almost forgotten fields of oratory and debate come some forty odd undergraduates prospecting for honor and exciting extra-curricular activity, it can be little less than an amazing tribute to the Occidental speech department. Attacking contemporary subjects four members of the Occidental debate team traveled to Stockton to compete against Brigham Young, Montana State, Utah State, U.C.L.A. and Cal-Tech and to be defeated in the semi-finals by the University of Nevada. In the party were Kring, McCune, Prochaska, Gassaway and Coach Melekian. Don ' t touch me. I am Crazy Horse! night after night filled the air of the Phi Gam basement and distraught Fiji minds the house over, but it was all to good purpose and late in March, Carter Yates won the Southern Conference Interpretive Reading Contest. Mean- while, down on Armadale Avenue gentle Deltas were sighing to The Ancient Beautiful Things and Willow Bray captured the parallel women ' s honors. Gregariously, the fraternal herds on campus moved through fairly peaceful pastures even though with Psi Delta Chi a thing prehistoric, the men felt a little overwhelmed by the larger number of women ' s houses. But what they lacked in quantity they decided to make up for not so much in the quality of their persons but in what they might do. And so, the Alpha Taus won a cup and an inter-fraternal glee club contest. The Kappa Sigmas chose four to sing their way to quartet supremacy and a hundred dollar prize. S.A.E. captured the intramural oratorical contest. But it was the Fijis who startled the whole campus with their sudden single surge of altruistic and intellectual philanthropy when they presented a lecture on art featuring one of their most prominent alumni, Rockwell Kent. Vestiges of Greekdom ' s more prosaic existence were seen in a rather smooth dance presented by the male conglomerate at the Vista del Arrovo Hotel in Pasadena, and in their synchronized Hell weeks that improved the condi- tions of every house, if not every pledge. Much of the good cooperation of the Greeks was due to the tact of Charles Bosworth, Interfraternity Council president. Invoking not so many diverse muses, the sororities glided through a year that bespoke of a gay social whirl, sundry teas for faculty and mothers, two very long evenings of pledge presentation, and a romantic, though the night was much too cold, Pan Hellenic dance at the Annandale Country Club. Reigning over the six sorority presidents that formed the Pan Hellenic Council was Jane Kieser. 23

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secretary, Bettie Dean Hart all of whom gave confidence, counsel, and labor in the times when these were most needed. Others on a staff kept small that it might be efficient were, Betty Merchant, Lee Campbell, and Henry Swinerton, while the advertising was handled by Cyril Kerrin, Armour Morris, and Barbara Morris. Nor could this book have gone to press without the aid of those two indefatigable assistants: Mary Cozzen ' s and Baily Abbot ' s Fords. What greater small glory could come to Martha Messick, and Vincent Jorgenson, grad- uating seniors of the Fiftieth Year Class, than to leave their undergraduate days behind as respective presidents of championship glee clubs. Surely one of the finest tributes to Occi- dental ' s celebration of a half century of progress was the culminating victory met late in April in San Diego when these two organizations swept to first places in the Southern Cali- fornia Glee Club songfest. Nor was that all; rather it was only the termination of a highly successful season which for the men included an impressive Home Concert built around Dr. Charles Frederick Linds- ley ' s interpretation of King Robert of Sicily, numerous radio broadcasts over local and national hookups and a rollicking, singing trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon with concerts too numerous to mention, lire women, though less transient, were, however, no less mute as they traveled from Santa Barbara to San Diego keeping certain home fires burning while the male songsters were gone with their wind. As the final musical spectacle of the year, too late, unfortunately, for pictures in La Encina, presented in May in the Greek Bowl was colorful, riotously song-full Smetana ' s The Bartered Bride. Leads in the production were taken by Cora Burt, William McClintock, William Hunt, Martha Messick, Eugene Bell, William MacDougall, Vincent Reed, Donald McKenny and Meryl Corn. Against a native green outdoor setting the kaleidoscope of peasant costumes and lilting music and ballet and folk dancing surpassed most every expectation. Under the executive leadership of Carter Yates, the direction of Kurt Baer and the roof of Occidental ' s Little Theatre, the Oxy Plavers spent a diverse, productive season. First, early in the fall, braving the rush and swirl of Greekdom ' s high-peak of social affairs, they presented The Queen ' s Husband with plaudits for Kenneth Sheets who played the King, timorous and lion-hearted, and June Hosmer who was his wife, and merely lion-hearted. Later on in search of new campus talent an evening of one-act plays was presented and while not quite as smooth as Noel Coward ' s Tonight at Eight-Thiity its entertainment was far more diverse. But with a real half-moon among the props, and a warm spring evening as part of the scene, the players blazed much color into their season ' s closing with a sweeping production of William Shakespeare ' s The Merry Wives oi Windsor. Amazingly good scenery, perfect acoustics and some grand lighting effects all helped the outstanding bits of acting make the 22

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THE SPORTING FANCY In the very middle of the nineties, during the year of 1895, Occidental ' s varsity foot- ball squad averaging one hundred and fifty pounds of weight won the championship of Southern California. The rivals ridden over included U.S.C., Chaffey College, Whittier College and Throop Institute (now the California Institute of Technology). On that first conquering team played three Ramsaur brothers, and fitting is it in Occidental ' s fiftieth year that the freshman footballers should be captained by another generation ' s Jack Ramsaur. Charles Bazata, Dean Cromwell, Horace Cleland, Dwight Chapin, J. P. Hagerman, Owen Bird, Fred Thompson, Chester Bradbeer, William C. Allen, Drury Wieman, Tliaddeus Jones, Harry Kirkpatrick, Sid Foster, Sam McClung, Arthur Shipkey, Ralph Deems— these are but names, and names but tags to memories. And while the student of today may pass a hur- ried, unknowing eye over them, into the eyes of other generation ' s grand-stand quarterbacks and team mates will come a glow of warm recognition of rememberings of football victories when uniforms were home-made, when every yard gained was gained by line plunging, when Oxy cinder-paths encouraged winged feet to phenominal glory in the days of Peter Poole, trainer; and when State championships were chiefly a matter of defeating the University of California. TTie Oxy tiger is no longer the sabertooth it was in the days when California colleges and universities were young, but still into every athletic team is inculcated the fire and the spirit, the fight and the sport that burned in those yesterdays. Football of 1936, chaotic, colorful and grandstand filling, rushed through a season that heard cheers in two languages as the team played conference games and a Tnatch in Mexico City. Occidental o U.C.L.A. 21 Occidental o San Diego 7 Occidental 19 University of Mexico 6 Occidental o Whittier 18 Occidental 32 La Verne 7 Occidental o Redlands 10 Occidental 7 Cal. Tech. 7 Occidental o Santa Barbara 27 Occidental 14 Pomona 6 More definitely consistent in the heads up, aerial, wide-open brand of football played than scores would indicate, Occidental ' s Bengal owed much of the yards it made to the 24