Pioneer Log Headlines

In honor of Alumni Weekend 2019 (June 20–24), we scoured past issues of the Pioneer Log student newspaper to highlight a few events from the spring semester of decades past.

1969: 50 Years Ago

• “Man for peace, peace for man—let’s start with Vietnam” was the sincere hope expressed by L&C students in Japan who folded and strung 1,000 paper cranes for presentation to the Children’s Atomic Bomb Memorial in Hiroshima Peace Park.
• Under the direction of L. Stanley Glarum, 72 students participated in the annual choir tour through Oregon, California, and Nevada over spring break.
• May Fete activities included a Mothers’ Club Fashion Show, the Spring Sing, and the Queen’s Ball.
• The Pioneer track team, “led by some great efforts and superior depth,” retained the Northwest Conference Track Title under coach Eldon Fix.
• Since the beginning of winter term, six L&C students were arrested for “prowling about Riverview Cemetery by night.”
• Commencement exercises were held for the first time in the new Pamplin Sports Center.

1979: 40 Years Ago

• Winter term final exam week was canceled as a result of missed class time due to “a 53-hour ice storm,” which included broken water pipes in Howard Hall and widespread campus power outages.
• Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau was selected to be the 1979 commencement speaker.
• An 83-year-old R. Buckminster Fuller, author/physicist/architect, spoke to an overflow crowd in the chapel. He predicted “an end to the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and a greater use of inexhaustible power resources such as solar energy.”
• The L&C College Outdoors “wilderness program” received full funding from the Board of Trustees.
• The Pioneer women’s softball team clinched the league title for the second year in a row with a perfect 8-0 conference record.
• Alice Walker read selections from her poetry in Tamarack Lounge.

1989: 30 Years Ago

• Noam Chomsky, thought leader and founder of the field of psycholinguistics, was the keynote speaker in a three-day symposium organized by Students in Solidarity With Central American People.
• After 26 years on Palatine Hill, men’s basketball coach Dean Sempert announced his retirement.
• Thirty L&C students left for Russia as part of the college’s overseas study program. “Our students will have … extraordinary opportunities to closely examine the contemporary conditions of life in the U.S.S.R.”

1999: 20 Years Ago

• L&C students grumbled about L&C’s new parking fees.
• In the spirit of the Super Bowl, residents of Stewart, Odell, and Akin gathered on the lawn for an aptly named “Mud Bowl.”
• Students requested that Bon Appetit switch to organic produce.
• Construction was planned to convert the parking lot directly in front of Pamplin Sports Center into a grassy glade.

2009: 10 Years Ago

• In February, L&C participated in the National Teach-In on global warming.
• L&C’s annual Casino Night was held on Valentine’s Day. Atten- dees enjoyed “an abundance of prizes,” including an iPod Nano.
• Portland author Katherine Dunn read from her novel Geek Love to a packed crowd at the Frank Manor House.
• “Indie hip-hopper” Macklemore performed during KLC’s annual Sunburn music festival.