Beaver's Digest Vol. 4 Issue 3 by Beaver's Digest

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VOLUME 4 // ISSUE 3

Finding our future in the past

Ignoring The Issue

Pg. 10

Meet the Staff

Bottom row: Brock Hulse, Maddie Bradshaw Middle row: Emma Brown, Levent Arabaci, Sarah Weaver, Roman Battaglia, Megan Anderson Top row: Kate Brown, Alex Larson, Marina Brazeal, Adair Passey Not pictured: Madison Delgado, Emma Irvin, Alex Vo, Melanie Reese Photography by Sydney Wisner

Letter from the Editors

The theme of this issue is about finding our future in the past. The retro theme that runs throughout this issue combines the intricate history of Corvallis and Oregon State University with the strides our town has made thus far. Our cover story, Ignoring the Issue, discusses the history of the oppression of black individuals at the university and the struggles this demographic has faced through the decades. In addition to this, throughout the issue we highlight past social struggles, sports, traditions, trends and successes within the community. We hope you enjoy this issue just as much as we have enjoyed putting it all together. Volume 4 issue 3 is a reminder to the community to never forget the past, and to be hopeful for what is yet to come.

Maddie Bradshaw, Editor in Chief Adair Passey, Assistant Editor

Photography by Sydney Wisner

@BeaversDigest

Ignoring The Issue

OSU Traditions

Letter From The Editors

Oldest Business In Corvallis

Civil War Rivalry

What Makes Campus Safe?

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s It Worth?

Coleman Field

A Certain Type of Fame

Scary, Spooky and Supernatural

Going Greek

Beyond Home Making

Halselling Through Herstory

Meet The Staff

What Makes Campus Safe? Writing by Brock Hulse Photography by Aja Rayburn

Is Oregon State a safe campus? What is a safe campus? Was campus safety a concern in the past? Are the problems we face today new problems, or have they been here hiding in plain sight the whole time? Is there a way we can really answer these questions? The concern over the safety of students on campus from the kindergarten through university level is at an all time high, with CNN reporting on April 20 that so far in 2018 there has been 20 school shootings, an average of 1.25 shootings a week. This, combined with previous student movements in recent years working to end sexual assault on campus and the even more recent Me Too movement have brought the question of campus safety into the spotlight recently. But did this concern for campus safety exist back when our school administrators went to school? According to Steve Clark, the OSU Vice President for University Relations and Marketing, such concerns that we have today were not seen while he was attending OSU in the 1970’s. “I do not know of any public safety concerns from the 1970’s that may still exist today,” Clark said via email. “In the early 1970’s, OSU relied on its own safety personnel and likely agreements for mutual aid with the city of Corvallis. Safety patrols were very limited and safety personnel were not engaged with students at all, as I recall.” This however, does not mean that campus safety concerns did not appear occasionally after events on campus. “When a serious incident involving the death of a female student occurred at OSU in 1972, additional patrols were added and dorms were locked and monitored 24/7,” Clark said. “In time, I suspect those procedures were relaxed. Things are completely different today at Oregon State as it regards public safety.” As campus and public safety concerns have increased since Clark’s time at OSU, the importance of campus and public safety has become a major part of schools and universities across the nation. “Along with other administrators at OSU, we make safety a priority everyday,” Clark said. “As well, due to serious incidents that have occurred worldwide we

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constantly review and update our safety procedures and systems.” According to Suzy Tannenbaum, the new OSU Chief of Public Safety who has 26 years of experience in law enforcement and public safety, with the last 5 years being in higher education, incidents both nationally and worldwide have indeed lent themselves to heightened community concerns and public safety programs. “National incidents tend to lend themselves to bringing about community concerns,” Tannenbaum said via email. “From those concerns as well as specific safety issues from the institution allow us to work on strategic plans, systems, and educational programs that can assist with those concerns.” According to Tannenbaum, this need for constant review and updating of safety procedures in order to better protect students and members of the community is indeed happening within the OSU department of Public Safety. “We are making changes and adjusting all of the time in this department,” Tannenbaum said. “We are working on upgrading systems and equipment to keep our community and officers safer. We are providing and mandating more training for our staff. We are updating our policies and procedures. We are building solid partnerships with departments, staff, and student groups that will continue to be ongoing and growing.” For Tannenbaum, the relationship between the community and the OSU department of Public Safety is especially important at the university level. “I feel that working in a campus environment gives us the opportunity to truly make a difference and build solid relationships with those we serve,” Tannenbaum said. “It allows us to work in partnership with consistently known individuals, groups, and departments. Back in the early 1990’s when I started my career, community policing was a hot topic and huge push… Somewhere along the way, some communities and agencies lost that direction. I feel that working on a campus gets me back to that opportunity and build this department in that model because it’s so important that we work together as a community to make the campuses safer!”

One of the 23 Blue Light Emergency Phones located at OSU’s campus

Community policing wasn’t the only major change in public safety seen in the 1990’s, as 1990 saw the signing of the Clery Act, which required all colleges and universities who receive funds from students using federal financial aid programs to collect and disclose all information about crime on and directly next to their campuses. The act itself was triggered by the public attention brought to unreported crimes on campuses after the rape and murder of Jeanne Clery, a 19 year old student at Lehigh University. According to Clark, who had spent nearly his entire career in the world of journalism prior to taking his position at OSU in 2011, such campus safety concerns that are apparent today like sexual violence were not and should have been covered by journalists during that time period. “From the 1970’s until the mid-1990’s, I wish that I was much more informed and that society in general, and journalists in specific were much more engaged in issues such as the scourge of sexual violence and acting to inform and help prevent sexual violence and support survivors,” Clark said. “I suspect that we were

inexcusably unaware and, when we did hear of an actual incident, we were not as mindful of the pain felt by survivors of sexual violence.” With more and more incidents being brought into the public eye, the ability for students to feel secure is becoming even more crucial. “Because of what is occurring nationally and globally regarding attacks or violence, or national or global politics, I recognize that some people feel insecure,” Clark said. “I want them to know that we are mindful of their feelings. But as important, I want them to know that OSU’s campus is very safe. In late April, a study was released and ranked OSU as the No.1 safest campus in the nation.” The study Clark was referring to was conducted by Your Local Security, which is affiliated with ADT Security Services. The factors used to make the rankings were the crime reports of the US department of Education’s Campus Safety and Security Survey, which is the information collected through the Clery Act, as well as the FBI’s yearly crime reports for the cities that host the campuses. While such facts and figures are commonly used while making these rankings of universities and colleges safety, there can be a large amount of variation between different organizations rankings of the schools. For example, Alarms.org, which releases a yearly ranking of Safest College Campuses in the U.S. did not even include OSU in their ranking of 243 college campuses, despite using nearly the same data. The largest difference comes from Your Local Security looking at the FBI’s crime reports for the cities that host the campuses, while Alarms.org looked at the FBI crimes reported by universities, which does not include OSU going all the way back to their 2010 report. It is the discrepancies like this that can change entire ranking reports when trying to determine what is the safest college campus, with the FBI itself stating a note within their report saying that “Caution should be exercised in making any inter-campus comparisons or ranking schools because university/college crime statistics are affected by a variety of factors.” “We do not take safety for granted. We will always work to improve safety,” Clark said in reference to the recent No.1 ranking. “Each of us has a role in providing for our own personal safety and the safety of the campus community based upon our own personal choices regarding our use of alcohol, legal or illegal drugs, how we drive, and how we treat others.” ◊

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A Certain Type of Fame Writing by Madison Delgado Photography by Emma Brown

Everyone wants to be known in some way, whether it be from their work, their kindness, or some other aspect of themselves. And each type of fame is a little different; we don’t all have to be movie stars. On March 1, 2018 the Delta Lambda Phi hosted the Yellow Rose drag show, where the proceeds went to an LGBTQ suicide prevention and crisis hotline, called the Trevor Project. That night, the Memorial Union ballroom was packed with people watching drag queens compete, and at the end of the night, Lex Dewey Porter a.k.a Carmen Sutra was crowned. Sutra is a regular in the Drag Scene of Corvallis and Albany. She’s a dancing queen, bringing passion and moves that match well with her sick beats. And while her confidence during her performances may cause you to think she has been doing this for a lifetime, she hadn’t even seen a drag queen in person until she went to Alt Prom in 2010. Lex explains that “I didn’t understand what a drag queen was…I was very naive, and very into hiding that kind of side of me, so when I saw stuff like that I would go kind of “conservative” on it.” Drag opened up new side to Sutra, and it all started with makeup. She lived with a roommate who would sit down and paint her face whenever she had free time, not for a special occasion, but rather just for her. Eventually, Sutra took up the practice as well, “It started to become meditation time. It was me time where I wouldn’t really have to think.” This self care time became a true passion, and now Sutra posts online to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat under FabuLex Makeup to show her fans her new makeup looks. She isn’t in it for the fame though, that’s secondary to the therapeutic side. “If people like me enough to follow me, that’s great. I’m not trying to push myself to get more followers… if you like me, I’m down for it. We’ll be fam,” Sutra said. That confidence and self love can also be found in the drag house she belongs to, the Haus of Dharma. This house aims to provide “local groundbreaking gender performance art entertainment while working to empower and provide services for the LGBTQ+ community, especially those individuals on the trans* and gender non-conforming spectrums.” Beaver’s Digest went to a show at Bombs Away cafe that the Haus of Dharma hosted, along with Eugene’s Farce Family. The show was a melding pot of queer performers who performed acts such as sensual skits,

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Haus of Dharma performer lip-syncing

moving ballads, spoken word poetry, and classic drag lip sync performances. While the acts varied, one thing remained the same--the sense of unity and solidarity between the queer folk performing, and the watchers enjoying their work. In this little restaurant turned nightclub, these performers were famous. If you go to any of the shows in Corvallis or Albany, these are the stars that keep people coming back. This tight knit community, which is family to many, has its own stars that mean so much to this community. To be one of these stars isn’t a type of fame that everyone will know about or understand, but it is its own certain type of fame that’s valid. In the legendary drag documentary, Paris is Burning, queen Dorian Corey leaves us with the parting wisdom that “Everybody wants to leave something behind, some impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you left your mark on the world if you just get through it. And a few people remember your name… then you left a mark. You don’t have to bend the whole world. I think it’s better to just enjoy it.” ◊

Lex Performing at Bombs Away Cafe 2018

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Haus of Dharma Performing at Bombs Away Cafe 2018

Beyond Home Making

Writing by Emma Irvin Photography From: The OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center The term Home Economics tends to bring to mind images of high school sewing classes, childcare and homemaking. “When I think of Home Ec I think of cooking classes” said Hannah Wilson, a senior studying Business Management. Universities around the country have done away with their Home Ec departments, merging them with others or renaming them to avoid the stereotyping that seems to follow the study wherever it goes, but Home Economics is so much more than teaching young women to be housewives. Leslie Burns, a professor at Oregon State University of Apparel Design and Merchandising in the College of Home Economics, stated that “Home Ec is essentially the science of food clothing and shelter.” The college of Home Economics was founded in the late 1800’s and originally focused primarily on homemaking. In the 1920’s Ava Milam, the namesake of Milam Hall, created the first laboratory preschool west of the Mississippi. The OSU Orange from 1909 writes that the department “[prepares] girls for the life work which they as women of the future are expected to perform” and provides classes on “Hygiene, HandSewing, Dressmaking, Cookery, Etiquette, Aesthetics and Care of the Sick.” These statements seem to reaffirm the stereotypes of Home Ec but couldn’t be further from what the major evolved into. Beginning in the 1970’s Home Ec became much more modern and outwardly science based. “Things were really changing in the Home Economics world,” remembers Karen Hooker, head of the college of Social and Behavioral Science. The college was really focused on building strong communities, strong families and solving social issues. Entering the year 2000, the college offered degrees in Human Development and Family Studies, Nutrition, Food Science, Apparel Design, Housing Studies, Interior Design, Merchandising Management, and Technology Education. These majors aren’t outdated and archaic, they are present and applicable in today’s world. The stereotype that pairs Home Economics and housewives was, at one time, accurate, but holding on to that stereotype in the modern age of Home Ec doesn’t add up. Burns remembered that “[There was] pushback that [Home ec] was not a feminist study, and we would all look at each other and say ‘we’re just about as feminist as you get’... I always made the point that we were almost like a women’s college,

all the club leadership were women all faculty were women, and you don’t see that in biology you don’t see that in engineering. So the women [in our college] had an advantage building leadership skills.” Home Ec started off as a study for women, and continues to be primarily studied by women, but in no way does that mean it’s not a rigorous or data based subject.

“To be honest I used to look disdainfully at Home Economics but actually when I started looking into the history of it I was really interestingly surprised. To me it has deeply feminist roots.” -Karen Hooker Individuals who majored within the College of Home Ec have gone on to study solutions to food insecurity, malnutrition, lack of health coverage and homelessness. Home Ec functions just like any other applied science. It changes based on current needs and current problems. “If you look at any applied science programs across campus [you can see] they’ve changed. Look at animal science, it’s changed so much in the last 100 years. You’re constantly keeping up with the industry and with what the needs are”, Burns said. The College of Home Economics no longer exists at OSU, but the majors, subjects and spirit that made up the college haven’t gone anywhere. If you stand in the MU Quad you can still see that Milam is carved with the words Home Economics, a testament to the importance of the major throughout this schools history. Between 2000 and 2002 the college merged with the College of Health and Human Performance to ultimately become Oregon’s first accredited College of Public Health and Human Sciences in 2014.The study of Home Ec continues to change and evolve, and will continue to do so no matter what college or name it exists under. ◊

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Ignoring The Issue Writing by Roman Battaglia

PHOTO CAPTION

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Ignoring The Issue

Writing by Roman Battaglia Photography From: The OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center Five sentences. A quick summarization of the weeklong scandal that affects African-American students on campus was the only thing that appeared about the Black Cultural Center in the 1977 issue of the Beaver. On a dark Monday night, Oct. 18, 1976, a group of eight vandals erected and burned a five foot high wooden cross in front of the Black Cultural Center at Oregon State University. “What they saw on television or what they had heard from an old uncle or crazed neighbor,” Tim Hall said as his experience as one of the few dozen African-Americans at Oregon State University in the 1970’s, “those were the stereotypes that they had placed on me.” Those stereotypes were what led to the continuous cycle of discrimination and oppression of African-American students at Oregon State University. Hall is now a retired public relations professional based in Portland. An alumni from 1977, Hall graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism. But public relations isn’t what he had his eyes set on going into college. “I started out, believe it or not, majoring in oceanography,” Hall said his decision to switch to a completely different program than the one that drew him to OSU in the first place, “I was actually discouraged from that field.” Hall wanted to study geological oceanography but ended up discovering that the program taught at OSU was not the right fit and scrambled to find a new program. “That left me kinda floating, I ended up considering economics and ultimately I settled on journalism because many of the teachers I had said I was a good writer.” Halls experiences at OSU personify the experiences that many AfricanAmerican students face coming to study here. To look at how Oregon got to where it is, it’s important to look back to the past. Early settlers in Oregon were both anti-slavery and anti-black. In an effort to drive out competition by blacks for work, the state government passed a series of laws in 1843 and 1944 that both banned slavery and prevented blacks from entering the state of Oregon. These laws were enshrined into the constitution when Oregon became a state in 1859. They were intended to keep former slaves and foreigners out of the state. They weren’t repealed until 1926. The black population has never recovered fully from those laws, according

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to the United States Census Bureau, only 2.1 percent of the population is African-American in Oregon, compared to 4.1 and 6.5 percent in Washington and California respectively. This is far below the national level of 13.3 percent of the population. Where this lack of diversity was seen most was in small towns, just like Corvallis, where the homogenous population isn’t used to outsiders. “The town itself, we had issues where you would go shopping, I would go into the Safeway, I’d have somebody following me.” Hall said his experiences in the town of Corvallis, “It was that sort of small town attitude, because being from Los Angeles, diversity is everywhere. When I was here in Corvallis, the tallest building was the library and the Kerr building. When I got here I said okay, there’s no skyscrapers, there’s no big city, and I think Corvallis at that time was 18 or 19 thousand people.” According to Hall, the biggest issues came from the people living in the city, not the college.

“My very first day coming to Corvallis I got a police escort. I had a Benton County sheriff follow me into town and stop me.” -Tim Hall Police stops were common for Hall and other African-American students living in Corvallis, “when I asked him, why’d you pull me over? He said ‘well, what are you doing here?’ and I had a sticker on the side of my window that said freshman beaver. I said ‘I’m going to Oregon State.’ and he took down all my information down and wanted to know where I was going to live, which I was offended by.” The experiences that African-American students faced in Corvallis in the 1970’s extends into modern day. “I think a big one is lack of faculty of color.” Trenton Joiner is a bioengineering major at Oregon State. He is a leadership liaison at the Lonnie B. Harris black cultural center on campus, responsible for communicating with DCE and the other cultural centers on campus. He said the lack of diversity

OSU Students 1991

among the professors at Oregon State. “As far as I know, I’m in the college of engineering, there are three professors of color in the college of engineering. This is my third year at this school, I’ve never had a professor that wasn’t white.” Joiner knows from experience that this is an issue that affects his peers as well. “Representation matters. When you see someone who holds a position that looks like you, that’s gonna do something to you internally, that’s gonna make you think, oh wow, I’m capable of doing something, I am capable of getting a PHD, I am capable of being a professor, especially when your whole life you’re seeing messages subconsciously that say that’s not something you’re allowed to do”. The university, and Corvallis as a whole, has worked to improve diversity and race relations on campus and in the city. Charlene Alexander is the new chief diversity officer at OSU, looking towards

creating an inclusive and diverse environment on campus. She said that the improvements that corvallis is committed to make the city a safer and more diverse place. “The history of Oregon is the history of America altogether. Race relations continues to be a struggle across the country. However, what I have seen and experienced here in Corvallis is a community that is committed to working together and building a more diverse and inclusive space,” Alexander said. “A community that recognizes, as so many businesses and communities across the country have recognized, that diversity of thought, perspective and experience lends itself to excellence.” But not all people of color feel the university is doing enough to address diversity on campus. Terrance Harris, the director of the Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center, said the issue he notices at OSU. “OSU is really trying, and President Ray supports this and other administrators but they need to do a better job at supporting specifically AfricanAmericans and Native Americans because nobody wants to address that,” Harris said. “They don’t want to address those communities that deal with the brunt of a lot of things.” Harris said about other minority communities, while deserving of it, often receive more support than the AfricanAmerican or Native American populations. Joiner also talked about this lack of addressing the issue at hand. “I think the school claims to take diversity seriously and says that they do, but doesn’t in action. A lot of students just don’t really care, don’t really take it seriously. They don’t feel like it’s important especially white students who are the vast majority of this school,” Joiner said. “They say, well that doesn’t affect me, so that doesn’t really matter. That’s not all students, I know a lot a lot of white students who are sitting down for the cause but, there is a thought of ignoring racial issues rather than dealing with them.” While Oregon State may be more diverse than other colleges, less than 2 percent of students identify as Black or AfricanAmerican. According to the 2017 campus inclusivity survey conducted by student affairs, 66.7 percent of African and African-American students thought that inclusivity was essential to their academic success, while only 34.4 percent of white students thought the same. Joiner shares an example of ignoring the issue he has noticed on campus, “I have a friend who was in a classroom, she was the only black girl in the class. And they did an anonymous forum, you type in whatever you had to say and it comes down SUMMER 2018

on the screen. So people in the forum were saying the N word and talking about all this crazy shit in the forum. And the professor sees it and just shuts it down, like alright we ain’t doing this, just shuts it down. Didn’t say, you know, this is wrong, why y’all doing this? Just ignoring the situation, ignoring the problem. And I feel like that’s how a lot of students and faculty are, they just kinda wanto to ignore the problem.” Joiner thinks that this is what leads to a lot of the issues that African-American students face on campus. They feel like there isn’t any support from the student population and from the university. The university isn’t doing anything to help. “The one thing about President Ray is he speaks his mind. When he says he’s gonna do something, he does it.” Hall said his experiences on the Board of Visitors for Minority Affairs, a distinguished group of minorities that advise the president on matters of diversity among their constituents, “There was a situation where all of these cultural centers needed to be rebuilt, including the Lonnie B. Harris Center. President Ray went out and personally got the funds to rebuild each one of them. He went out and talked to alumni to get them to support these facilities. Ed recognized it was a benefit to the university to have cultural centers on campus.” President Ray isn’t the only person fighting the uphill battle for diversity. Alexander is also working as the Chief Diversity officer to improve things for minorities at OSU. Projects such as creating a task force focused on diversity training, hosting the building name forums and developing a new strategic plan for the next five years that works to improve the experience of minorities at the university. While the university is working to improve diversity at Oregon State, many students hope that it can come faster. Students like Joiner want to see more representation at the University. Improving the amount of faculty and students of color at Oregon State will help them feel more welcome at OSU. “Having outlets and having other people I can relate to,” Joiner said his involvement in many different communities on campus has helped him to enjoy his time at university, “in a world where I walk to class and I’m one of three black people and people of color in general in the class and people are staring at me like ‘why are you here?’ Walking up and down the street and people are staring at you, they’re staring at you because they haven’t seen anything like that before.” Representation matters, especially in a state that lacks in the diversity of its population. The five sentences in the 1977 edition of

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The Beaver reflect on an entire week of turmoil at OSU, where everyone was weighing in on the cross burning controversy. And despite all the letters to the editor, all the talking and fighting, the eight students received an ‘undisclosed punishment’ from the dean. They may very well have been suspended or expelled if it wasn’t for the very people that they harmed. “The action I took was affected by a very positive magnanimous attitude of Black Student Union (BSU) and Black Cultural Center leaders” Robert Chick stated, the dean of students in 1976, about the punishment. With more representation among all people of color at OSU, we can begin to see a repair of trust between communities and no longer a disregardance of the issues. ◊

OSU Student 1991

Lonnie B. Black Cultural Center 1991

Lonnie B. Black Cultural Center 2018 Photography by Miranda Grace Crowell

SUMMER 2018

Robnett’s Hardware: Oldest Business in Corvallis

Writing by Arianna Schmidt Photography by Isabel Scholz

Crossing the threshold into the long storefront, customers can feel the history of so many before them taking the exact same steps. The walls are lined with purchasable product on the bottom, and above the stock captures the true essence of the hardware store. Historic and antique tools catch the eye, with their rusty handles and broken parts beaming with untold old-fashioned stories about the history of the establishment. In this store, every tool has a story, which began 125 years ago. Celebrating their 125th anniversary this year, Robnett’s Hardware Store in downtown Corvallis has been family owned and operated since its opening in 1893. With Tori and Scott Lockwood now running the show, the store is no stranger to native and long-time inhabitants of Corvallis. Perhaps because although time keeps moving forward, customer service and a community-oriented business plan stay in place. “We are lucky to have a business that is necessary,” part owner Tori Lockwood said in an email. “While we live in a disposable world these days, things still have to be repaired and replaced.” The last 125 years has etched milestones into the wooden floors underneath shelves, especially when it comes to the store name hung outside for all to see. As different family members were married in with husbands and such, the name was a forever cycle of change. ‘Robnett’, however, came into the family business around 1937 and stuck ever since. “My husband Scott and I are the 6th generation owners of Robnett’s Hardware,” Lockwood said via email. “I personally have been working here since I was 14 years old, that’s 40 years!” Working along the couple is their 2 sons, who have been learning the ropes in the store for about six months now. The Lockwood boys are now seventh generation to work in Robnett’s and Lockwood said she and her husband are hoping they will continue to operate the business in years to come. “I am a Robnett and the family was all around this area-Corvallis, Brownsville, Albany,” Lockwood said via email. “My grandfather’s brother was the mayor and a doctor of Albany. Throughout the years we have

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Newspaper clip hanging at Robnett’s Hardware

often had three generations working here in the store at any given time.” Scott Lockwood said the store has been able to stay open for so long because of consistency of customer service and willingness they have to change and adapt to new products as time changes. “It’s a great place to work because it is familyoriented, family owned, and very service oriented,” Lockwood said. “We generally will walk customers through a project rather than to say “the parts are over there”, we take people to the parts.” The store keeps a small stock but offers special ordering that allows customers to get what they need in just a few days shipped right to the store, Lockwood said. (Tori) “We feel like we can compete with the big box stores by keeping our prices competitive and our customer service skills strong,” Lockwood said. “We can offer faster service in most cases so people can get back to work quickly.” As far as a motto goes, Robnett’s doesn’t really have one, according to Tori. A part of the legacy of

Robnett’s Hardware Store Downtown Corvallis 2018

Robnetts, however, is hands-on, speedy service at competitive prices that keep shoppers coming back. “Product knowledge is something that is ongoing for all of us,” Tori said in an email. “If we don’t know or don’t have we can try to find out. After 40 years I think I still learn something new every day. All of this equates to personal customer service-this is the way we can compete.”

Robnett’s is not computerized for sales, Tori said. Employees can take care of any sale in the back room if necessary, which makes them stand out from the big box stores. Regular customers also have charge accounts which helps with quick and easy shopping before continuing on with their project. “We can do some small fabrications as well as sell most anything by the piece or by the foot,” Tori said via email. “We try not to force customers to buy packages of more than they need. We open packages so that customers can touch items and see if it works the way they think it should.” Lockwood said business has been down slightly for the last couple to years due to younger generations only relying on big box stores to shop hardware. This downward trend on business can also be contributed to Internet sales and limited parking in the downtown area as well as traffic. However, there has been an increase in the last decade of women customers, which nowadays seems like a norm. “Unlike ‘the old days’ when the men did all the repairs, they are needing to be able to take care of things themselves and we hope we can be a good source of information, service and more hands on,” Lockwood said in an email (Tori). Being a small, family-owned business in a small community means the money spent in the store stays right here in Corvallis, and Lockwood said the family is proud of that and can use it to succeed. “The downtown is amazing,” Lockwood said via email (Tori). “Our customers are loyal and many we would consider friends or almost family. You know you live in a small town when a customer forgets his billfold or doesn’t have quite enough money you can tell them to take care of it another day or they need to borrow a tool and you just let it go out knowing they will bring it back soon.” Scott said the Robnett’s staff will take you from point A to point B in whatever hardware or outside project customers are pursuing to the best of their ability. Following the growing downtown are where they are located, he hopes the store will do the same, and that’s all dependent on keeping the business family owned and family invested. “We just hope more family members come in and want to be involved, that’s the key,” Lockwood said (Scott). “If the family wants to come in and be involved and the next generation wants to do it, then that can make it go from generation to generation and it takes that next person to do that.” ◊

SUMMER 2018

What’s it Worth? Writing by Ashley Peterson Graphic by Logan Hillerns

The city of Corvallis is not the same city it was 60 years ago. Taking a look back into Oregon State’s history shows many changes. From new businesses to buildings on campus and raising tuition and housing fees, the surrounding area of Corvallis has changed dramatically since the 1960s. According to the Economist article, “Commodity prices in the (very) long run,” “In the late 1960s and early 1970s, rapid worldwide population growth and soaring commodity prices gave rise to fears that humans were outgrowing their planet’s resource capacity.” Prices are ever-increasing, a product of inflation over the last 60 years. Lisa Huang, a business information systems major and member of the Oregon State University Marketing Club, said in an email, “Inflation has increased significantly since the 1960s. According to the housing data provided by the census, from January 1963 to March 2018, the average cost of a house has gone up by 2,150 percent.” Prices of housing and tuition are increasing more than the inflation rate is. “Inflation has driven the cost of attending Oregon State University and increased the price of goods in Corvallis. Since many students don’t have a stable source of income yet, it can be tough to get through their time here,” said Huang in an email. Students have to deal with the ongoing increases of tuition as well as the housing markets in the area. While inflation is a problem, the pricing of housing within the Corvallis area is surpassing the rate of inflation. Oregon State University Finance faculty member Dennis Adams said, “Average annual inflation since 1960 is about 3.75 percent. One dollar in 1960 is equivalent to eight dollars and forty-six cents today. That means a Panda Express meal would have cost about a dollar back then.” Despite inflation increasing, there can be upsides to the increasing prices. Adams said, “Inflation has an upside. A lot of people have mortgages with fixed payments. Inflation ultimately makes it easier to make those payments, since wages tend to rise with inflation while the payments stay the same. The

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inflation we’ve seen over the last 60 years is pretty reasonable. The real problem is when costs like housing or tuition increase much faster than the rate of inflation.” Huang did some research on the 1960s typical household and found there were multiple household goods that could be purchased for under one dollar.

“If I had a one dollar in the 1960s, I could get a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a six pack of soda, and the list goes on.” -Lisa Huang “You could find many household goods and basic consumption products for under one dollar.” These household objects now range anywhere from two to five dollars. While these prices have increased over the last 60 years, they have not increased enough to be concerned. A member of Oregon State’s Economics faculty, Job Chesbro, said in an email, “Obviously most things would have been less expensive in nominal terms. You might have been able to find a lunch special for $1 or less. However, I can tell you a few things you could not have purchased for $1 in 1960: You could not have spent an hour on a long-distance call. In fact, they probably would have charged more than $1 per minute. It also would have been pretty hard to download an mp3 of your favorite song for $1 in 1960.” Prices have risen equally across the country since inflation remains tied to the value of the dollar. “In fact, we expect some inflation in a healthy economy because that is what happens when people have more income – they buy more stuff and that drives up prices. Inflation becomes a problem if prices rise faster than income,” Chesbro said in an email. Prices have gone up since the 1960s at Oregon State University, but continue to increase at a healthy speed. In recent years, inflation has not been a significant problem. After the economy crash of 2008, the economy has been turning around for the better. ◊

WHAT’S IT WORTH?

1960’s vs. 2018

1960’s 1 dollar in 1960 has the worth of $8.46 in 2018.

1960’s 1 dollar in 1960 could buy you a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, or a six pack of soda.

2018

= from January 1963 to March 2018, the average cost of a house has gone up by 2,150%

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The Spooky, Scary and Supernatural: Sackett Hall Writing by Kate Brown Photography From: The OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center Strange noises, doors randomly opening and closing, footsteps from an empty floor, lights turning on and off, windows slamming shut, even bloody footprints...the list of unexplained experiences from residents goes on and on. Sackett Hall has been a building here on the OSU campus for quite some time. Due to the fact that it is so old, students have naturally circulated some rumors that the residence hall is haunted, so Beaver’s Digest decided to investigate the mystery by asking some students who live there if they have experienced anything out of the ordinary. Josh Milhoan is a first year student studying biochemistry and molecular biology and living in Sackett Hall this school year. Milhoan picked the dorm because it would be close to the buildings where many of his classes would be taking place, despite hearing from his sister that the hall was haunted by a ghost. Milhoan was kind of skeptical but says that “once I moved in, I started hearing a lot more, my RA’s would be like ‘so this is haunted, so if you see anything or hear anything weird, it’s probably a ghost.’” Once Milhoan was living in Sackett, he said his Resident Assistant (RA) told him the story of the supposed reason the old building is haunted. According to many who live in the hall, there are two different ghosts who live there, both of which had very tragic deaths. The first isn’t as well known, but there was an altercation between a woman and her boyfriend that unfortunately resulted in her demise. The second is more well known, as it is a Ted Bundy case. The horrific serial killer, Ted Bundy, confessed to killing a woman from Sackett who had previously gone missing. Milhoan says that there are even rumors that the woman killed by Bundy was murdered in the basement of Sackett, after which he moved her body to a mountaintop in Washington where she was later found. Milhoan states that he finds this rumor “spooky.” On multiple occasions, Milhoan has noticed a rather strange occurance where doors that he has left open will have randomly shut without reason. However, the strange occurrences don’t stop there. “One night, which was a shared experience, where there was a weird banging sound in the stairwell

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Sackett Hall 2018 // Photography by Delaney Shae

that no one could figure out what it was. It went on through the night, and it was on someone’s wall that they shared with the stairwell. In our group chat that we have of the people in Sackett, they said like ‘hey, who’s doing that, I’m trying to sleep, can you not?’ and then everyone was like ‘what are you talking about, no one was out there…’ I don’t know what that could’ve been, but it’s a little weird,” Milhoan said. Another Sackett resident, first year student, Megan Anderson, who studies digital communication arts, has also experienced strange happenings. “I was sitting at my desk alone, at night, when I heard a crashing of cups of glass in my closet. I got up and walked to my closet, to see that my closet window had completely unhinged itself and broke off, making everything on the shelf come crashing down. The weirdest part is the window door was originally locked and it wasn’t even a windy night,” Anderson said. She has also experienced odd occurrences with doors, similar to Milhoan’s. Anderson did say, however, that “although I do believe there are spirits in Sackett, I have never been

Past Sackett residence enjoying the sun

afraid to live here because I don’t feel threatened by it.” Someone with some of the strangest stories was former RA, Denisse Ramos. Ramos is a third year double majoring in HDFS and elementary education. Ramos lived in the H wing of Sackett, which she says is supposedly the “haunted wing.” Upon beginning her position as an RA, she moved in before any of her residents to get everything ready for them, and during this time she had her first unexplained occurrence. “Before anyone moved in, I would hear someone running in the middle of the night on the floor above me,” Ramos said. “There was another time when my fiance was over before residents moved in, and we heard a knock from the room over. We opened my door and knocked on it and waited and even watched through the peephole to see if anyone would come out and no one did!” During rounds one night on the 3rd floor, during which she says she has experienced the most activity, her and some of her colleagues witnessed a door at the end of the hall start shaking back and forth “as if someone was pulling and pushing on it!” Ramos’s

colleague had the master key, so she knocked on the door, presented herself, and said she was keying in. They opened the door and the room was empty and the windows were closed shut. Ramos often had strange occurrences in her room at night. “I had to start closing my closet doors at night because the motion sensor lights would come on when I was sleeping,” Ramos said. “I had to start keeping my windows closed because when there was no wind, my window would slam shut.” The last experience she shared could be considered the most disturbing of them all. “There was also one time that there were bloody footprints that led to a girls’ room, and there was no explanation. One girl had been with a friend and the other was out of town.” Despite all of the strange happenings of Sackett Hall, we might never actually know what happened there. Whether or not it is a haunted building or simply an old one, the mystery remains as to what causes these unexplained experiences. ◊ SUMMER 2018

Halselling Through Herstory Writing by Marina Brazeal Photography by Cody McDonald To a single passerby on campus it might just seem like another stranger’s name plastered on the front of a building, but to others it’s the name of an Oregon State University legend. The Halsell Hall residence hall is named after Carrie Halsell; the very first black student to ever graduate from OSU. The road to success was paved with seperated bricks, and Halsell was set out to stomp the ground. Carrie Halsell was born in Boulder, CO. on Oct. 26, 1902. Her family made the move to Oregon from Colorado in 1912, and she graduated high school in Salem, Ore. in 1921. At the time, OSU was known as the Oregon Agricultural College. Halsell was enrolled in 1922 until 1926 when she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Commerce. Halsell had a strong commitment to her education and her graduation shows her resilience. According to Natalia Fernández, a curator and archivist of the Oregon Multicultural Archives (OMA) and OSU Queer Archives (OSQA), “One can only imagine how difficult it may have been for her to be a black student during the 1920s, at Oregon Agricultural College, and in Corvallis.” Fernández’s mission for directing the OMA and the OSQA is to work in collaboration with Oregon’s African-American, Asian American, Latino/a, Native American and OSU’s LGBTQ+ communities to support them in preserving their histories and sharing their stories. The story of Halsell began during a time when African-Americans were not welcomed with open arms by the Oregon community. Halsell was the very first African-American to ever graduate from Oregon Agricultural College, as well as being the very first African-American woman to graduate generally. Halsell slayed two birds with one degree. The next African-American to graduate from OSU was William “Bill” Tebeau, a student at OSU during the 1940s. “In the 1950s and the 1960s there were more African-American students enrolled at OSU, but the percentages were still extremely small,” Fernández said. “The Halsell story is a clear connection to the racist history of the state of Oregon.” Both Halsell and Tebeau were assumed to live off-campus due to segregation and discriminatory actions. Even after Halsell graduated with a college degree and moved to Portland with her family, she

still struggled to find a job because of the color of her skin. She was forced to settle and worked as a housekeeper for the Meier and Frank department store. Not long after being in the position did she pack her bags and flee the state of Oregon. According to Fernández, Halsell’s career blossomed and she went on to earn a master’s degree from New York University. The state of Oregon has a very unfortunate background of racism and discrimination. It wasn’t until the year that Halsell graduated that Oregon repealed the exclusion law, causing the state constitution to remove it from the Bill of Rights. “Both society and OSU have progressed since Halsell was a student, but there is still much more progress to be made,” Fernández said. ◊

Halsell Hall 2018 // Photography by Cody McDonald

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A Look Inside OSU Traditions

Writing by Sarah Weaver Photography From: The OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center

Mom’s Weekend Turtle Race

Imagine you’re walking through the quad on a spring day in 1924. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it’s another beautiful day in Corvallis. You see a young man in a green beanie veer from the concrete walkway to the grass. Suddenly, he’s chased down by two older students and forced to eat the grass he was just walking on. Why? The freshmen weren’t allowed to walk on the lawn at risk of being punished by the Vigilance Committee. Why? Well, because it’s tradition. Since its founding in 1868, Oregon State University has seen countless traditions come and go. Be it sophomores tormenting freshmen, turtle races, the homecoming bonfire, or the undie run. The Homecoming and Civil War games are filled with time-honored traditions, like the annual rook bonfire which dates between 1916 and 2013. All-University Sing!, a song and dance competition between OSU’s social greek-letter organizations, dates back almost just over 80 years to one of the first ever

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mom’s weekends in the 1930s. Homecoming and parents weekends aren’t the only traditions OSU has had over the past century-and-a-half, they’re just the ones that are the most well-known. The 30-year span between the 1890s and the 1920s were seen as the “Golden Age of Tradition” according to the Oregon State University Alumni Association’s history of traditions webpage. In those three decades, according to authors George Edmonston Jr. and Tom Bennett, some of OSU’s greatest traditions including the writing of the alma mater and the adoption of the beaver as the school mascot were established. It’s worth asking, what about the other traditions? The ones without scheduled weekends on the university calendar, the ones that have long been forgotten, the ones that are straight-up strange. When you get a group of 20-somethings in the same place at the same time, they’ll come up with strange albeit effective means of community building. For Larry Landis, an OSU archivist and researcher,

as well as author of the 2015 book “A School for the People”, traditions have had a significant impact on the college experience for decades. However their significance has changed as college life becomes less and less regulated and takes on less of a parental role. Landis said via email,

“Traditions have had significance as part of the college experience, and still do today to a certain extent. Because colleges and universities today play less of a paternal role than they previously did, students today have more choice about whether or not to participate in traditions than they did 100 years ago.” The idea of the so-called “Golden Age of Tradition” is not new to Landis. According to the author and archivist, can be explained by a number of factors including the State of Oregon taking control of OSU in the 1880s. After OSU relocated from downtown Corvallis to where Benton Hall is now located and William Jasper Kerr became president of the university, enrollment increased and traditions became a way for a growing community to express itself. In this Golden Age, every aspect of campus life had a tradition of some sort surrounding it, including athletics. There was a hard stance against freshman, who were referred to as ‘rooks’, fussing, Landis said. Fussing, or bringing a date or a friend of the opposite sex to an athletic event was prohibited up until the 1950s. In Landis’ opinion, there’s no minimum time period for something to gain or lose its status as a tradition. However, the deciding factor in a tradition’s likelihood to stay is the social norms surrounding a community at a given time. “I think it depends on the context, and if an individual tradition is part of something larger. For several decades, freshman men were required to wear green beanies during their first year (women had to wear green ribbons),” Landis said, “This tradition endured for many decades -- through the 1960s at least. What likely phased this out were changes in societal norms during the 1960s, plus the perception that being required to wear a green beanie could be

construed as a form of hazing.” Many of OSU’s first big traditions were centered around the behavior and etiquette that was expected of first-year students upon their arrival at OSU, from where they could walk on campus and what attire they were or weren’t allowed to wear. Students who weren’t in compliance with the rules set in the Rook Bible were met with punishments like being paddled, being forced to eat the grass they weren’t allowed to walk on, or being thrown into the Mill Race, a small tributary off of the Willamette River near what is now Highway 99. By today’s standards these traditions and the enforcement thereof would be seen as horrific acts of hazing. However, back in the 1920s these acts were considered to be a social expectation and while the things that were enforced were traditions, the enforcement is not a tradition, Landis said. “I don’t think students of that era viewed certain traditions as hazing -- they probably did not even know of that term. Instead, some of the traditions we might view as hazing today were considered rights of passage -- you have to do XYZ and comply with ABC to be a true Beaver. I don’t view the enforcement of those early traditions as a tradition in and of itself,” Enforcement of traditions was serious business at OSU, and turned into a school-sanctioned practice. Originally, traditions and rook etiquette was enforced by the Vigilance Committee, a group of sophomores who would dress up in costumes and scare the firstyear students into following the rules. Then, what started out as a group of 30 sophomore men terrorizing freshman students for not following the “Rook Bible”, the manual that laid out all the rules for first-year students, turned into two student organizations: the Talons and the Thanes, according to Michael Dicianna, lead research archivist and “OSU’s unofficial history geek”. The Talons and Thanes, 30 or so members of sophomore men and women, respectively, were charged with the task of ensuring first-year students followed the rules that they had to follow just a year prior. This could be the reason why older traditions could be seen as weird, when they were simply just a reflection of their time. Hindsight is always 20/20, even with long-standing traditions. As a result of the adoption of counterculture in the 1960s, the importance of campus traditions decreased. However, newer traditions that were just as bizarre were adopted by the student body, one of which was Turtle Derby. In the early 1960s, the on-campus of social SUMMER 2018

Rooks lined up for a photo

fraternity Beta Theta Pi hosted the first ever Turtle Derby in partnership with one of the social sororities as a philanthropy. Turtle Derby is what it sounds like, having turtles race down a small track during what was then Mother’s Weekend. Teams would get a turtle, decorate its shell and race it while raising money through getting people to bet on their reptile. One year in the early 1970s, all of the southern red slider turtles which are known for carrying salmonella were contaminated with the disease and had to be euthanized. The show had to go on, however, so the fraternity raced baby rabbits instead. The turtles were then banned from travelling across state lines, and had to stay in their native habitat, southern region of the United States. The campus-at-large wasn’t the only place where you can find old, weird traditions, according to Dicianna. Colleges within the university would, and still do, have traditions of their very own. The College of Pharmacy used to have a yearly class photo which featured an unlikely guest. “They had this skeleton and it had a name, I can’t think of it,” Dicianna said, “but every year their class picture included this skeleton so you got these really

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creepy class photos and they all had the skeleton in them.” If there was a tradition Dicianna could bring back, it would be the widespread knowledge of the Alma Mater song, “Carry Me Back”. He also thinks that the importance of tradition on college campuses across the United States is something that needs to be brought back and adapted to the larger student body.

“My thought on tradition today is that it’s sadly lacking, at all universities, not just us and a lot of that is because when you had 5,000 students everyone knew each other.” When you have 23,000 or 26,000 students, it spreads it out so much that a sense of tradition is lost.” Some traditions, according to collections archivist Karl McCreary, are a reflection of a larger national

cast off. One of these traditions was the Lube Olympics, which was put on by the Pride Center in 2004 as a way to start a discussion about using lubricant during sex. Other traditions that have faded out in recent years for different reasons, are the once-loved Tour de Franzia and the Rook Bonfire. According to Dicianna, the bonfire was discontinued in 2013 due to safety concerns after a homecoming bonfire at another university got out of hand and killed multiple attendees. Looking back on it now, maybe some of these traditions are starting to look a little strange. Maybe these older traditions are so bizarre in retrospect because the college campus is a living, breathing thing. The cultures within universities are changing constantly to keep up with the ever-changing tides of our social climate. As times change, so do the students. As students change, so do the traditions. ◊

Oregon State Traditions

culture and not just the culture of the OSU campus. One tradition, picking up paw-paws, was part of a reference to the comic strip “Li’l Abner”. Students would dress up as characters from the strip at the Freshman Mix event, which is much like the Beaver Community Fair on campus today. Another tradition that was active up until the 1960s was the “Ugliest Man on Campus” contest, that was put on by fraternities and sororities as a philanthropy event. Each fraternity would nominate one of their members to dress, “like a ghoul,” McCreary said. After their costumes were made, their pictures were hung in the Memorial Union and passers-by could vote with pennies on which man they thought was the most ghoulish. All of the proceeds from the Ugliest Man on Campus competition went to charity, according to McCreary. There are also one-off traditions, McCreary said, traditions that only last a couple years before being

Oregon State Traditions

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Over 120 Years: OSU vs. Uof O Writing by Jarred Bierbrauer and Munir Zarea Photography From: The OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center Since 1894, the Oregon State University Beavers and University of Oregon Ducks come together a few times a year to participate in the biggest college rivalry in the state of Oregon. It’s known as “The Civil War”. Although not happening on a regular basis, students, staff, teachers and outside spectators look forward to The Civil War and its intense competition every year.

Football In football, the two teams have met 121 times in total. The Ducks having the all-time (64-47-10) lead over the Beavers. But when the price of a game was only 50 cents and the crowd was a fraction of the size it is today, the Beavers and the Ducks fought with passion and integrity. The first ever Civil War football game between UO and OSU, previously known as Oregon Agriculture College (OAC), took place on Nov. 3, 1894 in Corvallis. UO was dubbed “The Lemon Yellows” and stepped on the grass to face OAC, but were no match, resulting in a 16-0 loss for UO. Larry Landis is the director of special collections and archives research center for the Valley Library. Landis hasn’t attended many Civil War football games since his time at OSU, but has seen many of them on TV. “The one game that really sticks out in my mind was in 1998,” Landis said. “The team was showing some improvement after having 26 or 27 losing seasons.” The Civil War game in 1998 was regarded, by many, as one of the best games in series history. UO was ranked 15th in the nation, according to Landis, and OSU was not ranked nationally. “We played some pretty good football,” Landis said. “We had lost a few very close games so we were a very competitive team.” It took place in Corvallis at Parker Stadium (now Reser Stadium), which was unable to hold its 35,000 person capacity that night. Extra bleachers were needed to be added in order to hold all 37,000 people attending the intense Civil War rivalry. Beavers freshman tailback Ken Simonton was the star of the game, and scored a 16-yard run in double overtime

to make his fifth touchdown of the game and a win for the Beavers. The final score being 44-41. “It [the 1998 Civil War game] really set the stage for the upcoming seasons, and Dennis Erikson’s first season,” Landis said. Erikson, the head coach for OSU football from 1999 to 2002, lead the Beavers to a conference title in 2000. The Beavers hadn’t won an outright conference title since 1956, making it a historic season for the school.

Track and Field Currently, Oregon State doesn’t have a men’s track and field program, but when it did, OSU and UO were intense rivals in the late 60’s and early 70’s. According to Landis, the Ducks have always been a perennial power in track and field, so during the time OSU was at its prime, UO was as well. Many competitive meets took place between the two teams around this time, but a 1500 meter race in 1972 between OSU’s Hailu Ebba and UO’s Steve Prefontaine was one for the ages. It was extremely close race, but Prefontaine eventually emerged victorious after a sprint to the finish line. In August 1975, Brian Pettit, a student at UO at the time, wrote an essay describing the sense of competition during the race. “The most moving event that I have ever experienced was a 1500 meter race between Steve Prefontaine and Hialu Ebba, the great 800 and 1500-meter runner from Ethiopia and Oregon State University,” Pettit mentions. “Whether it was music, a play, a movie, literature or being a fan at other sporting events when I desperately wanted my team to win, or other times I had seen Pre race, nothing compared.” The powerhouse that is University of Oregon has always been on top. Men’s track has taken 31 trips to the NCAA championship, claimed four NCAA titles, and were runner-ups seven times. Since the inception of the Pac-10 women’s finale in 1986, the Ducks own a conference-best eight individual crowns, and their seven team titles ranks second among the 10 women’s programs.

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Serpentine between halves of U of O vs. O.A.C. football game

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Women’s Basketball According to the Valley Library archives, women’s basketball at OAC (now OSU) began in 1898, three years before men’s basketball debuted in 1901. “Basketball is a sport that I follow, more particularly women’s basketball. Of course, with both teams being highly ranked this year has really has helped put the state of Oregon on the map in terms of women’s basketball.” The two teams split their Civil War series this year, OSU won in Corvallis and UO won in Eugene. Both made it to the Elite-8 in the NCAA Tournament, which can set the stage for even more intense Civil War women’s basketball battles in the future. Historically, one of the more controversial moments in Civil War history was the Pac-10 Championship game in 2000. A three-pointer from OSU forward Reda Petraitis was taken off the board when Beavers head coach Judy Spoelstra called timeout during mid-shot with 14 seconds left in the game. The shot would’ve put OSU within one point, but the Ducks walked away with the title beating the Beavers 60-53.

Where can students go to learn more? For more Civil War history and data, the Valley Library has a large amount of sports archives from OSU. “We have information on all of OSU’s athletics going back to our very first football game in 1893” Landis said. “We have a whole range of materials on athletics in general, and certainly documenting the various Civil War athletic events.” Information is also widely available in the Oregon State Special Collections Archives from students to learn more about OSU athletics and Civil War history. Materials include articles, historic photographs/film, media guides and yearbooks. ◊

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A Look Back on Coleman Field

Writing by Emma Brown Photography From: The OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center Goss Stadium is a fixture of the Oregon State University campus. Housed right in the middle of the action, it’s almost impossible not to hear the blasting music or the cheering crowds as you walk from class to class. However, what many don’t know is that Coleman field, the original name for the OSU baseball field and the field that Goss Stadium was built on, is one of the oldest ballparks in the country. Larry Landis, Director of the Special Collections and Archives Research Center (SCARC) at OSU broke down a bit about Goss Stadium’s history.

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“OSU has been playing baseball on the current site, Goss Stadium, since 1907. That makes it one of the longest (if not the longest) continual use baseball fields in the nation.”

The first game ever played at Coleman Field took place on April 12, 1907. At the time, there weren’t many options for opponents so the Beaver’s played Salem high school, who ended up beating them 4-0. Not exactly the fairytale beginning for the Beavers, however, Coleman Field saw it’s fair share of Beaver victories in later years. Overall, the Beavers 973-4201 all time at home, making Coleman Field a place of excellence. “OSU has won more than 70% of the games it has played at Goss Stadium (including 31 of 32 games in 2017)” Landis said. “Since 2005 OSU has had incredible success hosting postseason regional and super-regional playoffs, winning nearly 84% of those games played at Goss Stadium.” The field remained unnamed for many of it’s early years until 1981 when it was formally named Coleman Field, after Ralph Coleman, however it had been called Coleman field informanny since the 1940’s. “Coleman, who ran track and played baseball at Oregon Agricultural College in the 1910s, served as OSU’s baseball coach for 35 seasons between 1923 and 1966…” said Landis. “Coleman’s teams were very successful, winning 64% of their games and capturing ten conference/division titles. Coleman also guided Oregon State’s baseball team to its first College World Series appearance in 1952.” It seems only natural that someone who dedicated so much of their time to OSU baseball remained enshrined in its history forever. These days, Coleman field looks quite different from the original “stadium”. In 1999, there was a push for some major improvements OSU athletic facilities. Coleman Field was gifted with a substantial amount of money from John and Eline Goss for upgrades. Coleman Field was formally renamed to Goss Stadium at Coleman Field, after the Goss’ many contributions to OSU. At years progressed the stadium quickly became what it is today. Lights for night games were added in 2002 followed by two expansions in 2009 and 2015. The current scoreboard was added most recently, in 2016, rounding out the facility to look like the Goss Stadium we know. As far as the future of Goss Stadium goes, we may continue to see upgrades like we have in the past. The current outfield bleachers are temporary so eventually permanent seating in the outfield could help make Goss Stadium even greater. Goss Stadium at Coleman Field plays a unique role on campus. “Given that OSU has played baseball on the site of Goss Stadium for 112 seasons , it exudes history and has held many great memories for many generations of OSU baseball fans,” said Landis.

“The fact that it is in the center of campus is significant and makes it unique, in that most of our athletic facilities over the years have been moved to the outer areas of the campus.” Goss stadium is hard to miss and it truly a centerpiece of Oregon State’s campus. There aren’t many athletic facilities in the country that hold as much history as Goss Stadium and it is truly a special place for baseball players and fans alike. ◊

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Going Greek: Through the Decades Writing by Megan Anderson Photography From: Julie Dorr

“You might not necessarily share another member’s views but since you’re all in the same boat, you learn to accept each other’s differences, and make it work. It’s amazing too how the experience binds you to different people throughout your entire life,” said Jeff Varner. One thing is for certain: Greek life has been around for a very long time. For over a 100 years, it has been apart of Oregon State University. Since then, Greek life has had a long journey and has progressed along the way. Oregon State’s first, and longest lasting, houses are Kappa Sigma and Sigma Alpha Epsilon. These fraternities created the first Interfraternity Councils. Following them, in 1917, the first sorority Pi Beta Phi was established, however, it is no longer a house apart of OSU. Rather, that same year, Kappa Alpha Theta, Chi Omega, and Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity were also chartered, and still remain. The beginnings of Greek life were a little rough, to say the least. There was a lot of controversy for allowing different races into Greek houses. In context, it would make sense as to why houses were hesitant, or against, having anyone other than caucasians living in their homes due to the prominent racism at the time. Fast forward to 1961, four years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was created, Oregon was committed to ending discrimination on all university and college campuses. Therefore, according to The Greek Centennial website states, “Oregon’s State Board of Higher Education stated its intentions to “oppose and prevent...all discrimination based on race, color or religion.” And a year later, added to this commitment by threatening to, “withdraw recognition of any fraternity or sorority whose national charter then requires local chapters to restrict their membership on the basis of race or religion.” This declaration was put to the test in 1966 when Eugene Okino, a Japanese- American student, was looking to join Sigma Chi Fraternity. It took over a year for Okino to finally be initiated due to individuals in authority going out of their way to find loopholes, preventing Okino from joining. In short, discrimination was distinctly evident and changes to the overall populations mindset, especially within the realms of Greek life, was a slow process. When speaking to a former SAE from 1988-1992, Mike Dorr, he explains, “Back then, society in general didn’t have the knowledge, acceptance or conversational tools

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to engage in positive discussion about the various societal differences. Those who spoke out were often alone, as a lot of people just didn’t know how to engage in the discussion because those issues were simply not talked about out in the open. But it was clear then, that things were changing for the better.” As years progressed, the copious amount of discrimination against different races slowly dwindled. By the time Jeff Varner joined Phi Gamma Delta, better known as FIJI, in 1984-1989, he describes why he chose to join, “A great part of the experience was learning how to live and work with people from different backgrounds and with different world views. That was really appealing to me because I didn’t want to live in a house where everybody looked and acted the same.” Yet, Greek life was still facing other issues. One thing that is consistent throughout the years, is the negative connotations of Greek life. It’s not unknown that Fraternities take part in hazing and partying, especially during initiation, or “hell week,” and that there have been many cases of students dying because of these activities. Mike Dorr thinks back to his time at OSU, “during my time there, ‘frat’ was a word we didn’t use, as it has a negative connotation and used to put the individual fraternity or the overall system down.” With Fraternities getting a bad reputation, in 1951, many houses decided to have their pledges do volunteer work within in the Corvallis community. For example, Alpha Tau Omega had pledges and members do various tasks at the Corvallis Children’s Farm home and Phi Sigma Kappa did some harvesting for the Good Samaritan hospital. Now, to counteract the negative connotations, Greek life has made philanthropies their biggest focus and contributor for the community. Volunteer work, as mentioned, was always an important part of being a member, however, to have a specific charity to raise and donate money to in today’s Greek life is a key element. While talking to Jonnie Dorr, who was a Kappa Alpha Theta in 1962-1966, she comments that, “We did have services we raised money and donated to, but we didn’t have one big philanthropy event a year because it wasn’t as big of a deal.” One thing, however, that has always been a

Pi Kappa Alpha and Kappa Kappa Gamma Performing

big deal for Greek life is the recruitment process. In regards to this, the process remains fairly the same. Recruitment for women, before, was a week long, rather than two weeks. And, of course, with technology being so developed and widely used in modern times, now there is an app that’s used to list your favorite houses (or the houses you “pref”) in order of most to least favorite, instead of hand writing it down on a piece of paper. As for men, recruitment has consistently remained much more casual than it is for the women. Essentially, you pick a house that you feel best suits you and then you are, usually, offered a bid. Once accepted you are officially a pledge. For the houses themselves, location has significantly changed. The location of many houses started shifting from “Old Greek Row,” on or near Van Buren, to “New Greek Row,” on or near 23rd Street, around the 1960’s. Original houses that remain on Van Burren are Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Delta Theta, Lambda Chi Alpha, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Alpha Sigma Phi, and Delta Chi. House policies have also taken a turn, along with societal changes. More specifically, smoking cigarettes was a normality, especially within the 1940-60’s. So although drinking was, and still is, off limits in Sorority houses, smoking was their form of socialization among

the women. Jonnie Dorr recalls, “my sisters and I would go up into the attic to smoke a cigarette, talk, and play games.” It is safe to say that Greek life has immensely developed since their beginnings at OSU, and will continue to. Out of all the changes and differences, however, one thing is for certain: the bonds made through being apart of the Greek system will have lasting impacts. Even the eldest interviewee, Jonnie Dorr, reflects on her time as a Theta and says, “I made some really good, life long friends. It gives you direction, teaches you goals, manners, and how to be a women.” It is also quite common that these bonds are more than just briefly checking in every other year, or so. Julie Dorr, a Kappa Kappa Gamma member from 1988-1992, exclaims, “I just went away for a girls weekend with 7 other Kappas. We figured out we met 30 years ago, and are still such great friends. We see each other about once every three months and I know I can count on them any time!” Greek life has its ups and downs, much like anything in life. Yet through it all, the sense of community is what remains loyal. ◊

SUMMER 2018

Thank You! Designers Logan Hillerns Design Editor Mara Weeks Volunteer Payton Battles Volunteer

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