Freddy: Wow, what do I remember most about my experience at Panola? That's a difficult question because I have so many fond memories. I loved Panola when I was a student here. We had so much fun. Back then we had class officers. I was president of the sophomore class. Each year we would initiate the freshmen class. These festivities would last for a week. The freshmen were required to wear “BEANIES” (sort of like a scull cap). It was Panola Green with a white “P” on the front. A long time ago college freshman around the nation wore beanies. The freshmen were “owned” by a sophomore big brother or sister. Each day had a special theme. The freshmen would dress appropriately for that day’s theme. For example, one day they would be expected to be dressed in baby clothes or in a diaper and would be required to carry a pacifier. Then we had “Freshmen Day” on Friday. The sophomores tried to make it really bad on the freshmen, but it was done in fun. Don’t forget that we had been through the same thing as freshmen. It was a party day, and it was a fun day.
We would have like a tug-a-war. Well, my class really fired this tug-a-war thing up for the freshmen because we were so sure that we sophomores could really take them down. So we dug this hole and filled it full of water. It was like a big, big mud puddle. Then we went out and found all of the fresh cow poop that we could find, and we put it down in this hole. We smeared it all around because we were going to drag those freshmen through it. Well as it ended up, the freshmen team actually pulled the sophomore team through the hole. Then they grabbed me and pushed me back into that sloppy mess that was really stirred up well by now. You know, I had made this uh…, uh…, “stuff”. I mean I was sophomore class president. Now look.
We caught a bunch of armadillos on Patsy (Wedgeworth) Waldrop’s farm. We put highlife on these armadillos and we turned them out. The freshmen had to chase the armadillos, catch them, and bring them to us. I guess you would just have to have been there to know how funny that armadillo chase really was. Oh, don’t fret over the armadillos. There were returned to the wild. That is one of my fondest memories.
The Green Jackets Club was not anything like the Green Jackets are now. It was a service organization, but it was all women. The Green Jackets sponsored the school dances. We didn't have a student activities director, so various clubs would have parties and things. The Green Jackets always had a Christmas dance, and they always had a Valentine dance. By the way, I was Christmas King my sophomore year. Each spring the Green Jackets would have a slumber party. All the girls in the organization would bring bedrolls and sleep over in what is the ballroom now (back then it was called the Student Center.) I remember one year they were having their slumber party and a bunch of us guys decided that we would raid the slumber party. Well, Merle Glass (Merle Glass Dorm is named in her memory) was the sponsor of the Green Jackets. Mrs. Glass was just, you know --she was just a sweet old lady, but she would just cry and cry when you wouldn't do things right. She was a real stickler about everybody behaving properly and using the right kind of manners and all that kind of stuff. Well anyway, the slumber party took place in the Student Center. The Student Center was not nearly as big then as it is now. There was an outside window and we climbed in. Actually some of the girls opened the window for us when Mrs. Glass was not looking. They opened the window and a bunch of us guys climbed in through it.
We hid in the men's room. Every now and then Mrs. Glass would go out to do something. That’s when we’d come out and party for a while. A lookout would warn us when Mrs. Glass was coming and we'd go back into the men's room. This lasted until somebody told on us. One of the girls told Mrs. Glass that we were there. So, Mrs. Glass just called the police, you know. There we were. We knew the police were coming, so we hurriedly climbed back out the window. The front of the campus was not as developed with shrubs and flowers and things as it is now. It was just an open field with pine trees. So we ran out toward what is West Panola Street. I remember falling to the ground and lying there, you know, holding my breath while the cops drove through the campus shining their spotlights looking for us. They could have found us if they had really wanted to. I guess I’d better not tell you who all was with me. But a future City Manager of the city of Carthage as well as a couple of guys who are important “gentlemen” in the community now were right there with me.
I have a lot of fond memories of my student days at Panola. I could tell you stories for days.
Photo: Death of a Salesman, directed by Orita Morrison in 1965, was Panola's first contest play to win a superior rating. Left to right: Jennifer Riley, Freddy Mason, Joyce Lewis. (Courtesy of Freddy Mason.)
Hats
Off! to Freddy
Mason and Shasta Gamble for this story.
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This headline introduced an editorial in The Pony Express
on October 13, 1964. For a decade and a half freshmen had been required to wear
green and white beanies until the end of Freshman Week, which had begun as Freshman Day.
Freshman long had been required to don "ghastly costumes,"
and it had become traditional to toss
frosh into a mud hole, as well as to purchase "little brothers and sisters" as
personal servants.
It had all been regarded as good fun during PJC's early years, but at most junior college campuses the freshmen of the 1960's began to bristle at "such utter foolishness." The Pony Express editorial writer - undoubtedly a freshman - saw little real fun in these proceedings: "I understand that it is also fun to tie two cats' tails together and throw them over a clothesline, to drop live toads into a fire, and to watch gamecocks fight to the death."
"It is certainly time for PJC to abolish its childish Freshman Weed," he concluded. A growing number of college students came to share these feelings, and within the next few years PJC and most similar institutions quietly ceased to hold freshmen initiation rites.
Photo: Green felt freshman beanie, courtesy of Ken Andrus. (Photo by Karon O'Neal.) Photo scanned from Panola College 1947 - 1997 the first half century by Bill O'Neal.
Hats
Off! to Bill O'Neal
for this story from his book, Panola College 1947 - 1997 the first half century.