Wartburg College - Fortress Yearbook (Waverly, IA)

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Student Life Student Life 7

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6 Student Life

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First Days, Longer Days Wartburg has been advertised as a unique and different educational experience. The year 1977-78 certainly was unique and different, but perhaps not for the expected reasons. As students returned to Wartburg, facing orientation, initiation and the first day of class, their eyes fell on a campus that looked to be digging in anticipation of World War III. A labyrinth of ditches surrounded and infiltrated the campus for the purpose of laying new underground waterpipe. The perimeter of the school looked like the torture test ground for the new line of 1978 Ford cars. To top off this rugged state of affairs, northeast Iowa experienced a very short fail which translated into a very long winter. This phenomenon in itself was not a first, but the bitter cold, icy roads and snow produced an event virtually unheard of in the history of the institution. High schools call it a snow day, but this school has no name for the occasion since it has happened only twice in the last 40 years at Wartburg. Believe it or not, classes were canceled for one whole day due to the terrible winter of 1977-78. The winter also took its toll on the college ' s electrical system. Not only did New York City get hit by a blackout, so did Wartburg. On a blackout scale from one to ten, the Big Apple received a 9.5 while Wartburg achieved only a 5.2. Wartburg would have merited a higher rating, but only half the campus blacked out. This fact did not deter from the excitement, however. When the lights go out in New York, people loot, but for Wartburg students, no lights call for a search of alternative forms of study — moving to a location with working lamps or giving up for some candlelight and romance. And then there was the P.E. complex, nicknamed the Bionic Barn. Construction of the sports palace was begun in the fall of 1977, to be completed in the fall of 1978 as part of Design for Tomorrow. This task brought with it a couple of firsts. On the financial end, the complex contributed to raising Wartburg ' s annual costs to an all-time high, and for the first time almost all of the students ' athletic needs would be met, with the exception of a swimming pool, which was supposedly somewhere in Wartburg ' s future firsts. Finally, the end of the 1977- 78 year rolled around and the first day of May Term arrived. As students walked the campus the desertion and desolation became evident. It seemed that half the campus was gone — some to Colorado, some to Europe, some to Russia, and even some to Africa. May Term left the campus peaceful, quiet and serene, another first for the year. But as an extension of winter, the weather continued to be bad and the sun-worshipers barely bronzed at all. These things and many others not mentioned here made the lively first days and the sometimes routine longer days of 1977-78. Mrs. Laurel Kurtt (left) makes a class change the first week of school for Emily Ott as other students wait in line. 8 First Days, Longer Days