From the OLNEY TIMES, 6/6/64

Junior Social Theme Irish;

Leprechauns Hold Games, Dance, Song

The Junior social was held in the Plummer woods, 5/10*. The theme, Irish leprechauns, was portrayed throughout the social in the costumes, games, meal, song and dance.

The costume for the girls consisted of green shifts, white knee socks and tennis shoes, white blouses and black top hats with a silver buckle.

The boys wore green vests, white shirts, black knickerbockers, tennis shoes and black top tats.

The class advisors, Warren Stetzel and T. Stanley and Katherine White, assisted with costumes and ideas and gave general aid when necessary.

The traditional senior punishments were changed this year to senior honors or privileges. The theme, a royal court, consisted of the king and queen, Paul Cope and Anne Furnas, and their royal subjects, the remaining seniors. Each senior was given a royal title and a job connected with the title to perform for the king and queen.

The senior titles were as follows: Edith Barton, the benevolent artist; Santha Bundy, the most reverend twister; Harold Cooper, his highness’s royal carpenter; Janet Cooper, the court jester; Paul Cope, king; Anne Furnas, queen; Melinda Gamble, the philosopher; Albert Gronewald, extra-ordinary weight lifter; Jeffrey Hawkins, his majesty’s guitarist; Petter Henne, royal musician on the sax; Portia Idso, the world’s most honorable cook; Lynn Kendall, the reverend ambassador to Japan; Gerald Mikesell, court agriculturist; Raymond Moffit, eminent advisor on love; Sara Towe, his majesty’s guitarist, and James Winder, the beknighted actor.

The class dance, a jig, and the tune used for the class song were Irish in origin. The words to the song, however, were original and recalled past experiences for the departing seniors.

The social ended on this note, followed by a moonlight walk back to the school.

*This is an error. The correct date was Saturday, 5/9/64. According to timeanddate.com ,which displays calendars for all years past, present and future, the 10^th was a Sunday. The Junior Social took place on a Saturday. (GG)

Reporter(s) for this article not credited.

(But you know who you are! If you want to fess up, your identity will be posted!)

OLNEY TIMES STAFF

Editor-in-chief….. David Frazer

Managing Editor…..Thomas Tallardy

Copy Editor…..Susan Bailey

Proofreader…..Judith Stanfield

Stencilreader…..Gerald Grant

Circulation Managers…..Ramona Braddock, Anita Custard, Patricia Steele

Typists..…Georgia Bross, Jean Parker

Reporters..…Ramona Braddock, Paul Cope, Alice Hughes, Jean Parker,

Robert Salov, Edward Simonoff, Allen Starbuck

Illustrators..…Lola Gamble, Alice Hughes, Peter Reid

Photographer…..David Pixton

Printing Managers…..John Morgan, Edward Simonoff, John Webb

Faculty Advisor..…Warren Stetzel

“Our purpose—to report news and reflect views at Olney”

Junior Social, Saturday, May 9, 1964

Plummer Woods

From a letter of 5/8/64 from Gerry to his parents—

Our Junior Social is Saturday. The theme is Ireland and Leprechauns. I tried to sketch the costumes. You can’t really see what the girls’ costumes are like, but they’re supposed to be green jumpers, the same bright green broadcloth as the boys’ vests.

We’re all responsible for making our own costumes or having them made. All there is to make, really, is the vest. I started mine Sunday afternoon and got it partly sewn together. We’re working at the brick house where Stan and Kathy White live. They, with Warren Stetzel are our class advisors. Kathy knows quite a bit about sewing and is helping a great deal.

The hats—top hats—Warren got from a theatrical supply company when he went to get some things at a place near Cincinnati for a play the Seniors and a few others are doing in the park in Barnesville. The play is Liliom, by Ferenc Molnar. The musical Carousel is based on it.

We started on the dance yesterday. It’s fun—a little individual dance called Bag ‘o’ Pipes. Originally clay pipes were laid on the ground to form an X and you do a jig over them without stepping on them and shattering them. We just use sticks.

We have a delightful place picked out in the Plummer Woods. It think it will go very well, though at this point, I don’t see how everything will be finished, but I guess it will.

From a letter of 5/12/64 from Gerry to his parents—

The Junior Social took place Saturday; fortunately, we just escaped rain and it was a beautiful day. The juniors got out of classes Saturday morning to work. The costumes were finished about an hour before they were needed. Mainly it was finishing up button holes on vests; they were done en masse on Kathy White’s sewing machine, assembly line-style. I had mine done that way, too. But aside from the button holes I did all the work on my vest. So did a couple other boys and some cut out the pieces. The costumes looked so good! From a distance they almost looked like real “little people”

A week ago this last Sunday most of the class went out to Plummer Woods at 6:30 to clear out some of the area and prepare trails. The places had already been chosen by a committee beforehand. We had to clear brush, small seedlings and rocks out of the “amphitheater” (see the map) where the Senior Honors, and our song and dance were held. Then we went down to the place where they had planned to have supper (horizontal blue lines on map). It was a low, flat place covered with briers. Someone looked over the fence and discovered a beautiful meadow with a lovely steep hill like an amphitheater on one side. Permission was obtained during the week to use that land since it is not part of the Plummer Place. It really was beautiful in the early morning light and looked just the way hills in Ireland might. There is a place at the bottom of the hill like the stage of a theater. We decided to do the dance there instead of back in the woods.

So here is the program for the social: at five o’clock the boys had arrived at Motts’ to change. It looked rather odd before everyone left to walk over (not all in one group)—but all the Junior boys were running around and walking out the driveway wearing white shirts, black pants and white shoes. The Junior girls, who arrived just before the first load of the rest of the students had to rush down to the woods. They had gotten ready at the brick house at the North end of campus (Whites’). A couple of people were stationed at the edge of the woods and a couple more at the place where the path turned off the roadway. (Follow the blue arrows on the map.) A rickety stile had been constructed over the fence. I made a sign which was nailed on one of the fence posts and said “Ye be entering the Emerald Hills of Ireland.” I dashed off another two which were put at the edge of the woods: “Ye be entering O’Flaherty’s Woods,” and another one right near it: “Keep ye an eye out for the Little People!”—in green and orange.

Before supper there was a Leprechaun Hunt. One of the boys had an orange shamrock pinned to the back of his vest and everyone (Juniors) scattered to cause confusion.

The school car with the supper (hamburgers, corn, potato chips, cake, milk) could only be driven as far as the red X on the map so we had to carry milk cans, pots, two gigantic cakes down a long steep hill and over the fence.

After supper there were games: Leprechaun-in-the-stump (like Squirrel in the Tree!) and potato sack races, appropriately enough. After that we did our dance—the Irish Jig—with the aid of lights powered by a D.C. generator hidden in the woods. We almost didn’t have any music. You can’t run a record player on D.C. but someone came up with the idea of using a battery-powered tape recorder—just a small one. Because it was so small it sounded awful, but the music was mostly high-pitched pipes, so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. After that everyone was moved up to the amphitheater which was well-lighted with two large carbide spotlights for the Senior Honors and refreshments. The Senior Honors went off very well. In the past it has been known as Senior Punishments. It originally was “Honors” but over the years degenerated into “Punishments.” Instead of making fun of them by having them do ridiculous stunts, they were asked to do things that they could do fairly well, or were remembered for.

Next came the class song. Originally I had found all the words, verses and chorus to “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and made dittos of them, but some people in the class wanted to use original words to suit the occasion which were written, and I think this worked out even better. (Unfortunately I can’t find a copy of them.)

After the song it was time for Collection. After Collection everyone else left to walk back to school and the Juniors stayed a while to gather up what couldn’t be left until Sunday. Then we all walked back swinging a Coleman lantern at the front of the line and singing all the way. Everybody got busy in the kitchen washing up all the tin plates and cups and silverware, and after that we went around serenading faculty homes. By the time I got to bed it was 11:30.

I forgot to say that on the trail out of the woods (see map) there was a giant paper mache’ potato about the size of a television which Dana Zak and I had made that morning. It was lighted with the Coleman lantern and Dana made a sign for it: “World’s largest potato—imported from Ireland.”

The trees are all out now and the blossoms are departing. It was hot and humid last week right up until Saturday evening.