The following is an excerpt from "Ohio University, 1804-2004: The Spirit of a Singular Place" by Betty Hollow, published by Ohio University Press.
In 1962 the nation's youngest elected president, John F. Kennedy, was in the White House. He spoke confidently of a New Frontier and sent men into space; he worried about the spread of communism into Southeast Asia and ordered Green Berets to Vietnam; he challenged a new generation of Americans to ask what they could do for their country and created a Peace Corps. In the South, Martin Luther King Jr. and James Farmer preached nonviolence and pushed for desegregation and civil rights. The children of World War II veterans--the baby boomers--filled out college applications and danced the Twist. The federal Food and Drug Administration approved a birth control pill.
But despite these changes in technology, foreign policy, race relations, demography, and mores, the early '60s in isolated Athens were barely distinguishable from the idyllic '50s. Student life was still ruled by traditional attitudes. On most evenings, coeds were locked into their dorms at an early hour. Each spring and fall, they and their male cohorts dedicated weeks to building floats, practicing skits, and arranging dances for Homecoming and J-Prom. The unexplainable tradition of exuberant seasonal riots--such as the Orange Riot of 1958--continued. Each spring, St. Patrick's Day celebrants, some from as far away as California, poured into town (now called the Fort Lauderdale of Ohio). Ohio University had acquired the reputation of a party school.
Next: The "Dancing Fools"
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