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baCk then John cebalo
NMU, class of ’68
Concerts, festivals, the Vietnam War: a look at a year at odds with itself
By John Cebalo
“The idea of a co-ed dorm was a lurid novelty even as far back as 1968.” Tom Wolfe, In Our Time.
There’s so much that can be said about NMU in the late ‘60s, but perhaps this excerpt from a May 24, 1968 Northern News Letter to the Editor sums it up best:
“I cannot begin to describe to you the horror, chagrin, and genuine disgust I felt as I witnessed Northern’s young adult students frolicking madly about in the mud created in front of Spalding Hall Tuesday night. Not only were individual rights infringed upon, but also their bodies, clothes and personal belongings. Roving bands of students preyed upon innocent bystanders and passerbys. They were subject to the discomfort of a mud bath.”
There were several threads which led up to this event that can be traced back to earlier in the year.
What is there left to say about 1968? The year was energized. It wasn’t all negative energy either, and the positive energy ran across the entire spectrum from the ethereal to the goofy.
Northern began the Spring Semester with an enrollment of 6,500. In January “Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges” listed several Marquette County Northern students: Constance Hill (Ishpeming); Cheryl Anderson, Raymond Gudegast, Linda Heathman, Mary Jo Mulligan, Mary Pace, and Suzanne Somers (Marquette); Peggy Dompierre, Norman Munson, and Jan Sivula (Negaunee); Jean Coleman (Skandia). Mary Pace would later be named Northern’s Outstanding Senior Woman.
All Events Week came the next month. Competition took place in sports, for Campus Sweetheart and in snow statue building.
The guys vied in a half-dozen outdoor events, of which broomball, played on the field between Hedgcock Fieldhouse and Forest Roberts, was the most popular.
Co-eds competed in Polar Bear Volleyball and “tobogganing.” Tobogganing was where several laughing, woefully under-dressed girls, clinging together on a cafeteria tray, slid down a snowy hillside toward the inevitable pileup at the bottom. However, for the automotive-inclined, there was the Volkswagen Race behind Spooner. Following a Le Mans Start, 11 girls pushed a
VW (probably adorned with a flower on the hood) to a point where all dove in, the driver started the motor, turned the car, and raced — or perhaps jerked — back to the start line.
There were 19 Sweetheart candidates. The winner, Marquette’s Mary Hammerschmidt, whose beaming countenance adorned the entire front page of the Northern News, was crowned at halftime of the Northern-Tech basketball game. Mary had previously been featured in one of the News’ Friday’s Fairest sections. The Sandpipers, a folk rock group, best known for their hit “Guantanamera,” performed before a full crowd in Hedgcock.
Several organizations worked all night in freezing temperatures to be finished in time for Saturday morning’s snow statue judging. A total of 19 of them were constructed.
The Snow Queen Ball was held in the University Center that evening. It was announced that, for the third year in a row, the same fraternity, helped by their spectacular 80-foot long sleeping dragon snow statue, had won the overall competition again. The Mining Journal headline summed it all up; “Thousands On NMU Campus To Take In Carnival Events.”
As winter grudgingly loosened its grip, and by the last Monday night in March, Spring was definitely in the air. Around 11 p.m., neighborhoods near the college first heard, and then observed, a disturbance on campus. Was this some kind of weird orgiastic collegiate rite perhaps? It was. While the triggering circumstances will forever be shrouded in myth, it seems to have originated in the Golden N cafeteria between two girls’ dorms, Magers and Meyland Halls, and two boys’ dorms, Hunt and Van Antwerp Halls.
Before anyone knew it, the guys were rampaging through Magers and Meyland in search of panties. After looting these two dorms of souvenir female underwear, and with growing confidence and increasing numbers, they next turned their attentions to the ladies in Spalding. Sweeping through the hall, hooting and yelling, they then streamed across campus toward one remaining female bastion. It was 1 o’clock in the morning by the time they had finished with West Hall, and retreated, sniggering, into the darkness.
All this, and on a Monday night too!
Apparently the normal weekend activities just weren’t enough. These included favorite party places like the lodge at Cliffs Ridge ski area; road trips to Wisconsin, with its 18-year-old drinking age; and keggers atop Sugar Loaf — where, of course, getting chased, laughing and stumbling through the woods, by the law was just a bonus.
During April, the distractions included Twirp Week, with its Most Eligible Bachelor Contest, and the Associated Women Students’ House of Brides fashion show. At this time, because of the Vietnam war and the draft, 60 percent of Northern’s student body was male; while 35 percent of the senior men and 29 percent of the senior women were married.
Meanwhile, a sports reporter for the News decided to imitate author George Plimpton’s “Paper Lion.” Plimpton had participated in the Detroit Lions’ pre-season training camp for Sports Illustrated. The Wildcats had gone undefeated and made the playoffs the year before; and the reporter decided to do the same thing at Northern’s spring football practice. The stipulation was that he be treated just like everyone else. He was; and the “Paper Wildcat” column dried up after only one report.
Greeks constituted only about 7 perent of Northern’s student body. In 1968 there were 15 “social” fraternities and six “social” sororities. They informally occupied their own areas in the Wildcat Den in the University Center; and on Mondays their banners hung on display in the foyer in Kaye Hall. While they were continually sniped at in the Reader’s Column in the News, there was also another long-standing issue: student apathy. A February ’67 editorial weighed in:
“Greeks, fraternities foremost among them, are the foundation for practical-
ly all activities taking place on Northern’s campus. They take a large part in producing fall Homecoming festivities, All-Events snow carnival, and other All-student activities on campus. Since independent students and student groups have never given any indication that they would be willing to take up any slack created by diminishing Greek participation, it appears necessary that the fraternities and sororities on this campus not only grow with the University but grow beyond it.”
That was not the only area Greeks were active: there was politics too. From 1961 through 1969, all the Student Council presidents were fraternity members.
Inter-Greek competition was fierce. In the fall of ’67, inter-fraternity flag football had come within a shade of being canceled. In one three-day period, a half-dozen frat boys had been knocked into the Health Center: broken collar bone, sprained hand, two shoulder injuries, head injury (requiring stitches) and broken nose (requiring stitches).
Greek Week was in early May. It was heralded in the News with a full page ad, as well as 3-by-5 photos of all God and Goddess candidates.
A large wooden scoreboard was erected in the entrance of the University Center, so that progress in the multitude of events could be followed. Of special interest was the grueling bantam tug-ofwar, held across the road from Hedgcock, in the field north of Married Housing (nicknamed “Fertile Valley”). Saturday was the track meet, and the chariot race, which, actually, was a timed event, where a homemade sulky-like vehicle, carrying the fraternity’s lightest member, was pulled by four sprinters around Memorial Field’s 440-yard cinder track.
The week was capped by an all-night carnival held in the fieldhouse, featuring The McCoys (“Hang on Sloopy”). It was Northern’s first all-night dance. This was at a time of student dress codes and visitation and curfew hours for women, when the administration, prompted by the Student Government Association, was reassessing its in loco parentis philosophy. All women, if they stayed in the fieldhouse, had a 5 a.m. curfew. Those who left after 1 a.m. were required to sign into their dorms within half an hour. A frequent sight on weekend evenings in those days was a fan-shaped mass of embracing couples, saying goodnight in the courtyard before the entrance of West Hall. As curfew approached, the women would break off and scurry inside to sign back into the dorm.
In late May, was The Mud Festival. This was a week-long event sponsored by the Residence Hall Association. All 11 halls were represented by a queen candidate, and they initiated the activities with a pie-eating contest, which saw each
INTER-GREEK COMPETITION WAS FIERCE ... IN ONE THREE-DAY PERIOD, A HALF-DOZEN FRAT BOYS HAD BEEN KNOCKED INTO THE HEALTH CENTER
candidate kneeling in the mud, hands secured, faces pressed into pie shells, devouring the contents. Other cultural events in the mud included a greased pig chase, a grapefruit nose roll, egg throwing contest and an obstacle course over hurdles, saw horses, and barrels. Each contestant had a raw egg in their mouth — and to break the egg was to be disqualified. After each event, the contestants were literally hosed down in order to keep the mud out of the dorms.
The final event was on Saturday at Memorial Field when the queen candidates got into a whipped cream fight; the dripping winner being crowned Miss Mud Week. Appropriate trophies were handed out that night during halftime of the Green and White intrasquad football game.
Considering everything else that happened that year, for the 155 Marquette County graduates in the Class of ’68, this really wasn’t a bad way to end their semester.
About the author: John Cebalo (NMU ’69) graduated from Graveraet in ’64; but was academically hopeless. Northern had open admissions and he only got into college because of President Hardin’s “Right To Try” policy. There, he thoroughly enjoyed being a Greek. He eventually scraped together enough credits for a General Studies B S. And then? Hello Vietnam!
