HOMECOMING
Page 6
University Daily Kansan, October 26, 1984
KU symbols possess colorful history
By JOLIE OGG Staff Reporter
The University of Kansas' colors have not always been crimson and the blue.
In the 1860s the Board of Regents adopted the colors maize and sky blue because they were the colors of the University of Michigan, which the Regents had used as the model for KU, according to University Archives in Spencer Research Library.
Maize and sky blue had been used at oratorical meets, and they may have been used in rowing on the Kaw River in the 1890s.
BUT WHEN FOOTBALL first began, the students wanted to use Harvard crimson in honor of Col. John J. McCook, a Harvard graduate who had contributed $1,500 for the KU athletic field.
McCook was a friend of Charles Gleed, a member of the Regents.
Some faculty members were Yale University graduates, and they wanted to include the Yale blue.
In May 1896, crimson and the blue became the official KU colors.
Other symbols and songs of KU have interesting origins.
the famous "Rock Chalk,
Jayhawk, KU" cheer, which President Theodore Roosevelt said was the greatest college yell he had ever heard, originated in the mid-1800s.
At the 1920 Olympic Games, the
King of Belgium wanted to hear an American college yell. The athletes decided that KU's Rock performed the chant for the king.
THE CHEER ORIGINATED when E.H.S. Bailey, then a professor of chemistry and head of the chemistry department, and some of his associates were returning to Lawrence from a scientific conference and decided that the school needed a vell.
The click-clack of the train helped them come up with the first version: "Rah, Rah! Jayhawk, KU," repeated three times.
It was suggested later that "Rock Chalk", the transposition of chalk rock, be used instead. Chalk formation or chalk formation (found on Mt. Oread)
Robert E. Foster, director of KU bands, said that at every game the band played six songs: "I'm a Jayhawk," Crimson and "Tigers" and "Piggers" and "Jayhawk." "Stand Up and Cheer," "Kansas Song" and "Song of the Jayhawk."
"I'm a Jayhawk" was written in 1912 by George 'Dumpy' Bowles, class of 1912.
BOWLES HAD PRODUCED some student musicals and used the song in one shows. Although he did not become popular until 1920.
The song helped solicit contributions to build Memorial Stadium and the Kansas Union as World War I memorials.
The alma mater, "Crimson and The Blue," never was meant to be the official school song. In 1891,
Professor George Barlow Penny asked his students to write a song for the Glee and Mandolin Club to tour through Kansas to Denver
None of the students came up with an original song.
Just before leaving on the tour, Penny thought of New York's Cornell University song, "Far Above Cayuga's Waters." A few words were changed, and he gave it to the Glee Club. He hadn't meant for the song to be used after the club band sang a song called "Crimson and the Blue," the official alma mater of the University.
IN 1967 WILLIAM Davis wrote the "Fighting Jayhawk." The fight song came from the march "The Happy Jayhawk," which Davis, now a professor of composition at the University of Georgia, wrote when he was a senior in high school.
Kenneth Bloomquist, director of the marching band in 1967, heard the song and thought it would make a good fight song. Davis said.
In 1909, Paul P. McNeely, an accompanist for the Glee Club, wrote "Stand Up and Cheer."
The band first played it the sum mer of 1967.
Foster said the band usually played the song several times during games.
Since then, other schools have adopted "Stand Up and Cheer" accords. The Songs of Oleh are a sample collection by the University of Kansas Alumni
in 1948, when the 'Sunflower Song' became popular, Chancellor Deane Malott suggested that it be adapted for a KU song.
Association.
Professor Allen Crafton wrote the new words and called it "Song of the Jayhawk."
SHORTLY BEFORE THE "SONG of the Jayhawk," the Jayhawk that adorns almost everything in the KU bookstores made its first appearance. Harold D. Sandy, a student in the late 40s, designed it.
The first Jayhawk was drawn in 1912 by Henry Maloy, a KU student. Maloy put shoes on his Jayhawk and could kick his opponents upright.
In 1923 Jimmy O'Bryon and George Hollingberg created a version of the large-beaked bird. Six years later, the Alumni Club of Kansas City hired an artist to design a new Javawk.
Gene "Yogi" Williams designed another fighting Jayhawk in 1941. Williams' Jayhawk is similar to the one used today.
ALTHOUGH THE KU Jayhawk is a mythical creature, a KU alumnus in the 1940s felt the South American Toucan came close to resembling the Jayhawk and sent one of the birds to the Delta Upsion Fraternity House. The bird was named "Chalkie."
On the morning of the Kansas-Missouri football game Chalkie was found dead. The Jayhawks were beaten badly by the Tigers that day.
Bright-colored floats fruits of hard labor
By SARAH ROSSI Staff Reporter
Behind the creep paper, hand-
lettered signs and huge Jayhawks
are hours of designing, arranging,
and stuffing to make a homecoming
float, worthy to parade down Jay-
hawk Boulevard.
Transforming a wooden flatbed trailer into a float of bright, large figures is an expensive, time-consuming job.
For float workers, it means hours spent gluing pieces of tissue paper into chicken wire — a slow process called "pomping."
TRADITIONALLY, THE BULK of the work is left until three days before Friday's homecoming parade.
"We'll be working on it about three to four hours a night and Thursday we'll stay up all night pumping," said Colby Hall, Overland Park. "I don't mind getting away with the Pi Delta Theta fraternity-Kappa Alpha Theta sorority float."
Madeline Giannetti, Tulsa, Okla.
junior, worked on the Sigma Alpha
Epsilon fraternity-Pi Beta Phi
sorority float last year.
"We worked up until the last minute," she said "We were pomping as we were parading."
In line with this year's theme, "Contemporary Comics Come to
Floats are usually constructed through the combined efforts of two living groups, a fraternity and an order to split the time and cost.
KU. " characters such as Bugs Bunny and the Smurfs will keep company with the Jayhawk and the University of Oklahoma's Sooner wagon.
After the design is planned, construction proceeds by trial and error
"WE JUST MESS around with the chicken wire until it forms into something we like," said Bob Gaudreau, Wichita freshman, who is working on the Phi Delta Theta Kappa Alpha Theta float.
Float costs range from $500 for a float with no moving parts to more than $2,000 for one with moving parts.
"We've set aside around $1,000 for this year's float, including 600 square feet of chicken wire and 30 boxes of paper," said Todd Morris, Overland Park, the firm's imaging man for the Sigma Phi Epsilon Alpha Delta Pi float.
In tomorrow's parade, the floats will travel along Jayhawk Boulevard with local high school bands, antique cars and flag teams. The parade will start at the K.S. "Boots" Adams Alumni Center and proceed down Jayhawk Boulevard to the Chi Omaunt fountain.
Because the track at Memorial Stadium was recently resurfaced, the winning floats will not circle the football field at halftime of tomorrow's game, as they have in years past. Instead, the floats will be on display in front of the residence hall or house of the group that built them.
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