Southeastern Oklahoma State University - Savage Yearbook (Durant, OK)

Page 28 text:

Southeastern Gives Students A Workout From somewhere between the Spartan tendency towards self-deni- al and the Athenian love of physical beauty came the workout, the jog, and the weekend tennis star. At Southeastern, a school which is slightly more Spartan than most, both students and faculty uphold this tradition whenever possible. This means whenever that precious hour with nothing to do material- izes, the sons of SOSU and their coed counterparts don their tennis shoes and sweat-clothes and head for their personal Olympiad. After a good game of half-court basketball or a brisk two-mile trot, the student can enjoy his shower with the knowl- edge that his abilities and will-power are not limited to the classroom. This satisfaction is Southeastern’s laurel wreath, and is well worth his trouble.

Page 30 text:

Friends: The More The Merrier The Southeastern student, like ev- ery other person, must know how to tailor his behavior to fit the situation in which he finds himself. He must know how to be polite to the faculty and administration, “naturally”, vi- vacious at a big party, and charming with the date whom he is meeting for the first time. He must be able to act like a complete madman in a crowd, and he must be able not only to survive solitude, but to become accustomed to it as a regular lifes- tyle. All these effects of making a student wonder what he is really like, but they also make the student appreciate the times when he can get together with a few close friends and revert to his candid personality. But finding friends in a university is somewhat different from finding them in high school. In contrast to the “good old days” when everybody knew everybody and the senior class was its own world, the student dis- covers that he cannot hope to know even a majority of his own graduat- ing class. To overcome this isolation in a crowd, fraternities, sports and all sorts of organizations offer their services — at a price, of course, whether it be money or time. Through these channels and through circumstances and efforts on his own, the student gradually accumulates a group of people who call him “friend.” Some he forgets after graduation; others he remem- bers a few years afterwards; still others he may cherish the rest of his life; all however, make a student’s stay here a lot easier. If a student bombs a tests, it is somehow comforting for him to find out that his best friend bombed it too. A cruel sort of comfort, per- haps, but the miserable really need each other. And those tests one aces, the intramural games one wins and the feeling one has at the end of the quarter aren’t half so good as they are when shared with someone else. Even a cup of coffee or lunch with some acquaintance can greatly im- prove the quality of the day. Indeed, Southeastern would be a cold place if one had to face despair, triumph, and everyday life alone.