Seventy years ago was just around the corner, and almost a different world. You can see it in the old photos. It’s obvious, too, in the photos from my alma mater’s yearbook, the Glomerata, which I collect. My grandparents aren’t in this book, but their peers are. Maybe some people they knew, or would know later, are in here, though we’ll never know.
This is the third installment of our glance through 1954. Part one is here, and you can find part two here. I’ll put them all in the Glomerata section (eventually). You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all of the covers. I wouldn’t blame you. They’re quite handsome. The university hosts their collection here.
This is Walter Everidge, a senior from Columbus, Georgia, (or Decatur, the old pubs disagree) studying industrial management, which is a sufficiently vague sounding major. He was also the editor of The Plainsman, and the next several people we’ll see worked for the campus paper. I spend a lot of time on them because, a few decades later, I was writing under their masthead.
The problem right now is, I can’t find anything else, at all, about Everidge. But he’s got that posed candid shot down pat, doesn’t he?
Josephine Newsom had a grand life. She got a masters in history at UGA and became a teacher. She got married, they had three kids, was at the vanguard of Head Start in her hometown, and would teach art, literature, science and history until she retired in 1993. She became a preservationist, working to revitalize historic buildings, and the president of her county’s historical society. When she died, in 2015, she was survived by her husband of 57 years, two sons, six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Carmer Robinson is the guy in the multicolored shirt. He was a junior from Georgia, studying textile engineering. He was in the Army Corps of Engineers during the Korean War. He traveled the world, lived in Hong Kong for a few years and eventually went back home, working his way into a job as the international sales director for a textile concern. He helped develop pre-washed and stretched denim. He was heavily involved in his community, and did a lot of local theater, too. He was 89 when he passed away in 2019, having raised three children, 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Judy Long grew up in Birmingham. She married another student, Jim, and they had three daughters and nine grandchildren. If I’m reading this correctly, one of her daughters had three sets of twins. Judy became a high school guidance counselor. Jim died in their 52nd year of marriage. A dozen years later, she would remarry a lifelong friend. She volunteered at hospitals and attended her church for 60 years. She died in 2021 and her family wrote her a lovely obituary.
Bea Dominick was a freshman from Prattville, Alabama. She graduated in 1957 and married an Emory grad in 1958. They lived in Georgia, where he had a private practice until he retired in 1999, and then joined the faculty at Emory. Bea and her husband traveled the world. She has three daughters, a son, and several grandchildren.
Helen Hackett’s life took her from Jasper, Alabama, to Auburn — the Glom said she studied journalism. She ventured on to Connecticut, and then Fort Lauderdale and Indian River Shores, Florida. It was there that she published the diary of her grandfather, who’d been a country doctor. She died in 2011, age 75. She’d been married for 42 years.
Frances Walthall was a sophomore education major from tiny Newbern, Alabama — population 350 or so back then and about half that size today. She married an Auburn man who became a manager at Alabama Power. They had four children and 14 grandchildren. Her husband died in 2007, but she’s still living in the state.
Les Ford was the managing editor of The Plainsman. The enormous headline tells us he’s reading a paper from the week of October 12th. You can read it here.
Ford was from Greenville, Mississippi, born just a few years after the flood. I hope he was the sort of fellow who held on to those socks until they became fashionable again.
JoAnne Lucci was a senior from Montgomery, Alabama. She was studying journalism, and after receiving two degrees from Auburn she went into the business.
But she realized that she wanted her summers off, so she could be in the outdoors. She loved the outdoors. She was always on her boat, fishing or skiing. And if she wasn’t on the water her hands were in the soil. She wound up teaching English and journalism at her high school alma mater for a quarter of a century. She had a lake house on Lake Martin. She had season tickets to Auburn games for almost five decades. So the odds are good that, at least once, I was on the water, or in the stadium, at the same time she was. She died last December, at 91.
To the right of her is Charles, “Red” Provost. A decade or so after this photo was taken, that clean cut young man would become a hippie. And then he discovered flamenco music. And he lived a fascinating life. He taught English in Italy, studied music in Spain, worked as a paralegal back home in the States. He’d also been a secretary, bill collector and a milkman. He died in 2000, but had been a musical fixture in Atlanta for more than 30 years.
That’s Ronald Owen, on the right, holding the piece of paper that was going to be a headline or a newsroom punchline. Owen went into the U.S. Army after school, and later went to work for General Dynamics, IBM, and the department store, Rich’s in Atlanta. He moved to Jacksonville, Florida, working as the IT Director for National Merchandise Company for more than 20 years. Well into his retirement he freelanced for newspapers around Florida.
And the answer to the question was, yes, the Tigers would go a-bowling. They headed to the Gator Bowl at the end of the 1953 season, and losing to Texas Tech.
Bill Neville, of Eufaula, Alabama, is seated in this photo. The basketball arena is currently named after the Nevilles, who have donated millions over the years.
Col. Walter J. Klepinger was a professor of military science and tactics, and headed the ROTC program. This was to be Klepinger’s last year on the Plains. And, for some reason, the yearbook had this photograph flipped, so I’ve taken the liberty of correcting that error here.
The university’s library records say he was there for 20 years. His family genealogy says he served in the Pacific, apparently on New Guinea from soon after Pearl Harbor until 1944 or thereabouts. He also had some NATO based duty stations after the war. The colonel was awarded the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star medal. He is buried at Arlington.
In 1954, service in the ROTC was a compulsory two-year program for all male students (who weren’t already veterans). It might not have been all bad, you got to wear all the smelly old green uniforms you wanted, and played with a bunch of hand-me-down gear.
Also, the ROTC cadets got to ride around in tanks. Can you imagine? This was probably at Fort Benning — which is now named Fort Moore — in Columbus.
That’s enough for now. In our next installment, we’ll take a quick look at the rest of the ROTC, and some of the always-fun space filler photographs.
All of these photos will wind up in the Glomerata section, of course. You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all of the covers. The university hosts their collection here.
