125 Years
125 Stories
60 Chapel in the 30s Dorothy Plagge, who attended the high school and college from 1931 to 1938, remembers chapel services very well. Chapel was at 8 am every morning in the new auditorium-gymnasium, and the boys and girls sat in their assigned seats, boys in one section and girls in another. Third-year normal students played organ A, and President Bliefernicht and later President Schweppe, who’d taken the office in ’36, read a devotion. In 1956, the faculty began to preach sermons twice a week. Dorothy remembers that one morning as she was taking attendance, the president’s daughter, Betty Schweppe, was accidentally late to chapel. Although Dorothy kindly did not mark her tardy, the transgression did not go unnoticed: The president had seen his daughter arrive late, and he read her name aloud from the podium the next day, giving her an unexcused absence.
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1928 Organ A on the stage of the chapel-auditorium
M Marluts, Aeolians, and a TABS
“I remember with joy the tradition of the Marlut Singers serenading us in the front hall of our house early on the morning of the Christmas concert,” writes Rhoda Sauer Baer, daughter of Inspector (Dean) Edwin Sauer. “Our home was right next to the boys’ dorm, since my dad was Dean of Men. All of my childhood memories are tied up in the various traditions and fun times of the college days.” The Marluts, a male chorus whose name comes, cleverly, from MARtin LUTher, was formed in 1930 under the leadership of Meilahn Zahn. A corresponding women’s chorus, called the Aeolians, formed a bit later. The student-directed Marluts and Aeolians eventually gave two concerts every year, flourishing especially in the 40s and 50s and fading out in the 70s.
1931 The Marluts, the men’s student-directed choir, were first directed by Meilahn Zahn, second from left.
Another group also appears in concert programs for several years: The Three TABS, a group of 12: three each of tenor, alto, bass, and soprano.
1950 The Aeolians, the women’s student-directed choir, numbered 98 in 1950. They were directed by Mickey Pingel.
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