University of Wisconsin Stevens Point - Horizon / Iris Yearbook (Stevens Point, WI)

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Miss Stevens Point Pageant BY PAULA TORGESON On March 27, 1971, the community of Stevens Point watched as ten university coeds competed for the title of Miss Stevens Point. The pageant, held in WSU-Main Auditorium, was highlighted by colorful staging and the vitality of the University Players as they provided three musical arrangements involving the theme “Magic Carousel.” Miss Sharon Singstock. Miss Wisconsin 1965, performed the duties of Mistress of Ceremonies. The audience, composed of families. friends, and well-wishers of the contestants, viewed the finalists in evening gowns and bathing suits. It also delighted in the enthusiasm exhibited bv the contestants as each performed her particular talent presentation. Dancing, singing, and floor routines were all part of the pageantry. Finally, more than a month of lengthy rehearsals and unselfish endeavor on the part of the Stevens Point Jaycees and other civic organizations culminated that night when the judges chose Miss Patti Jacobs as the new Miss Stevens Point. She is a freshman from Wauwatosa, majoring in drama. Patti sang and danced to the tune “On A Clear Day for her talent presentation. The ten finalists pose in front of the judges during the Evening Gown competition. They are from left to right: Dottie Howlett, Judy Caldwell, Shawn Granger, Nancy Schmidt, Christine Johnson, R. Candie Erickson, Sue Anderson, Patti Jacobs, Shirley Badke and Miriam Olson. Shawn Granger, first runner-up in the pageant, entertains the audience with a lively folk dance to the song “Zorba the Greek. Patti Jacobs, along with the other finalists, parades in swim suit for the judges. Only memories are left for Sandra Kay Peotter as she relinquishes to Patti Jacobs her crown and position as official Hostess of Stevens Point. 12

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vast system and gives purpose to its aim or end. Citizens moved into this established system of military relations, became an integral part, sustained its principles and values, and then departed. Long after an individual has left, the corporate body remains intact, vital, and continues to act, having an existence quite apart from any person. The overwhelming mass of men who participated in and who are presently participants are good men and possess a high degree of integrity. They are, however, sustained by and have their vital existence in the military system; they incorporate and embody its principles even to death. They and all their public duties are military in nature. From time to time in the brief history of America, the good qualities of these men have issued in noble acts and the military institution has served during peace time as an instrument of genuine reform — for example. J. Pershing in the Moros Islands in 1906 and S. Butler in Haiti in 1916. But the elements mix, in corporate bodies as well as in men, and each instance of military reform of society draws out of and fuses with other vital cultural principles — as with Pershing’s use of medicine, agriculture, and town planning. Today, as so often in the past, the decent qualities within military men are submerged and suborned by the system of relations in which they must stand as military men and in which they have their being. The principles of privilege impede their participation in the Good and tend to thwart the issuance of a genuine cultural act. Military men are not, however, fully responsible for the moralless, or amoral, situation in which they knowingly or unknowingly find themselves. The abstract thought systems of the intellectual sustain the core postulates of the military system. While we could mention the aspects of several theories and positions in most fields of scholarly endeavor that do this, we shall mention only an example from history. A great dogma exists in the cultural sphere that war has been a creative force in modern American history. The dogma holds that force and military systems have been a necessary quality in the emergence and greatness of American life. Despite the acceptance of this belief by the dominant schools of thought, there is not a fact to support the apologia. In no manner, shape, or form did any American war create a positive factor, serve a human end, or contribute to our genuine vitality as a free and thriving nation. This statement includes the 180 invasions of small countries, 3,000 Indian fights, and the British, Mexican, Russian. Spanish, Japanese, Cuban, German, Korean, and Vietnam wars. It would also include the 5,000 instances of force against American labor. The Civil War, for example, did not free the slaves and World War II had little to do with the suppression of the Nazi doctrine. Obviously, in a sever-ly truncated argument of the nature of this reflection, we can only suggest the general line of approach that is elaborated more fully elsewhere. Our great national vitality comes despite the wars and the use of force, not because of it, and the abstract scholarly dogma merely provides solace and dignity and apologia for the military system. The appeal of the military system to history for its validity is an appeal to myth. In addition to the dogma of history, the cleavage between modem thought and corporeity of modern life is seen in pacifist thought. An examination of the vast literature on pacifism reveals the abstract and contradictory nature of their thought, leading pacifists to ends other than the ones they ardently aspire to. Most pacifists seldom define what is meant by peace, and those few who do frequently add little. Precisely what is this peace they seek in concrete terms of the world? Peradventure, it is a more rofound concept than pacifists ave thought it to be. Modem advocates of disputes largely connect with a negative definition of peace, at least this thought dominates the literature. Characteristic elements of the definition seem to lie in the feeling that peace centers mainly in persons, that it is a state of mind and that it requires exemplars and magic to obtain. Pacifists attempt to achieve peace by converting the mental states of men from military to peace. They must somehow find a way to get into the minds of men in order to cause or activate the peaceful qualities there. This is achieved first of all through magic — the use of paper with writing (a petition) presented to people to change their minds; the use of symbolism, such as a sign waved in front of people’s eyes to get into their mental states; walking around objects several times (picket). They also use special potions, formulae, and activity to get into minds — such as fasting, where their hungry belly becomes the means of access to another person’s mind. Of course, the fallacy is the presupposition of the existence of the mind as subjective. Fail- ing in the use of magic, their activities largely center on removing or eliminating persons within the military system as the only certain way to get jjeace. But the corporate system sustains its active life apart from the people comprising it. Further, the persons they wish to remove, on close examination, turn out to be rather decent people caught by a system. Also, if they do knock out the bad guy or devil, like LBJ, they get another one in his place, like Nixon, and the war(s) go on. The pacifists appear to be accomplishing little, for the wars go on and the decay within the nation appears to be increasing. Many have an adamantine position that one must act, give personal testament as to the true nature of his or her mental state. But this overlooks a basic fact. People in the final analysis do not act; only institutions act. They show little awareness of the nature of a cultural act. Of course, they raise a lot of dust; and it is certainly not the point of these desultory comments that pacifists cannot raise a lot of dust, but they cannot stop war or achieve peace. The military system and the dominant group of pacifists, it seems to me, have basic things in common. They both use a form of force to achieve their ends. The military use is obvious. The pacifists use force in the negation of the person in the military position. The denial of the human quality is precisely similar to the military’s use of force to reduce people to inert atoms by refusing them relational access to the Good. On this end, and on many other issues, the pacifists seem to hold to force as a principle to use to deny the validity of force in modern society. What strikes the observer of the current peace scene is the great stirring within the student bodies toward a, as yet undefined, peaceful world. There are great tasks to be accomplished but they all require arduous, genuine scholarship and hard study to achieve. Only a tiny handful of men and women presently are at work. Students have a splendid opportunity (denied to a system of force) to develop intellectual inquiry into the great problems of a peaceful world. All our old myths and dogmas have to be re-examined to provide a realistic base for the future; all the terms such as peace, war and action have to be clearly defined and their meanings made concrete in the lives of men. The true pacifist is a scholar. 11

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PATTI JACOBS 13 Miss Stevens Point. 1971