University Daily Kansan, October 17, 1980
Page 7
"I guess we can leave now—10 minutes are up."
Little man in campus paper got big laughs
By CINDI CURRIE Staff Reporter
After World War II at least one returning veteran enjoyed drooling over KU coeds, outmarting his insiders and ridiculing the fraternity system.
That veteran was Worthal, a cartoon character created by Richard Bibler. Students loved Worthal, administrators easily recognized him as faculty members easily recognized him.
Worthal and his cohorts were published in the University DailyKarnegie1946 and 1947.
"I wanted a character that could look a little stupid, yet everyone could sympatize with him," Bibler said in an interview recently.
Worthal, the Little Man on Campus,
was a sympathetic, ugly man, lovable
woman.
"Someone could really feel sorry for the poor guy," he said. "He was so ugly he'd sorry for him and yet they underestimated what he was going through."
Worthal despite his desire to avoid learning.
Worthal was in constant competition with his instructor, Professor North, who had been a long-time mentor.
Professor North was someone faculty members could identify with as well as students, Bibler said.
He said he wanted to create a professor who an instructor could say was really trying to do his job and who a typical professor could say was a typical professor.
"They complemented each other," Bibler said. "Worthal said, 'Hey, I wanna get it as much as I can,' and to help you with this thing called life."
While he was at KU, Bibler published six pamphlets with reproductions of his cartoons. Since then, he has published a book about his drawings and three other books.
Bibler's cartoons depict well-endowed female students coming home from harrowing dates, innocently beguiling their instructors and fellow students and sneaking men into well-guarded rooms.
Fraternity men wore Roman garb, sorority girls were of questionable virtue and finals were as suicidal as they are now.
Bibler said he got more flak from the administration than from other astrologers.
He said he had been called into the office of the chancellor two or three times because of cartoons he had drawn.
The 1940s
One cartoon showed Worthal's car door with a row of women painted on it. As he is painting another one, a friend asks, "How was your date last night?"
Bibler said he was called into the office again on that one.
"He said 'We can have any more of these cartoons,'" Bibler said. "But
Did it stop him?
"Heck no," he said. "We gave KU hell all the time. We showed 'em what was wrong. You need somebody to do that."
One cartoon that caused him problems, he said, was a student sitting at a table in the Union and salting his food with a product similar to Drano.
Bibler said one of his favorite topics was the food at the Kansas Union.
Bibler said he received a call from the Drano people the next day.
"They said, 'We know that you and everybody else knows that that was Drano.' Bibier said. "They wanted to sue me."
They never did, and Bibler continued to comment on the University and its so-called 'new' environment.
He said that Potter Lake was a topic that he used often in his drawings.
Bibler still gets ideas for cartoons every day, but he doesn't draw an animal.
He's a professor at Monterey Peninsula Community College in Monterey, Calif., and can understand students and administrators because he's known both sides.
Bibler is working on a map of the Monterey peninsula that will describe the history of the area through cartoons.
Digs quieted dandelions' roar
"I'd like to draw a cartoon again," he
but you really do have to leave the past, 40.
"It was time to let go. It was a good part of my life but there's a time when you've got to put that away, put it behind you."
"It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it."
RVDIANE SWANSON
By DIANE SWANSON Staff Reporter
Once upon a time, in the spring of 1941, KU students, faculty members and administrators skipped classes and work to dig dandelions on Mount Oread.
"Dandelion Day was a lark, a holiday, a lot of fun," said Elizabeth Lawson, widow of Paul B. Lawson, who was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the time. He died in 1964.
"The campus was literally covered with dandelions," she said. "This was, of course, before they had herbicides, and someone suggested as a joke that we let school out so everyone could dig dandelions."
Lawson said Chancellor Deane
wrote in a letter that he had
even joined in digging up the yellow
ceilings.
STUDENTS AND faculty were divided into 35 groups. Each group had a male and female captain. The woman captain was in charge of choosing 10 members from the team, and the other members for the team. The man was responsible for selecting 20 other men.
The winning team dug up 8,150 pounds that first Dandelion Day, April 24, 1941, and were awarded crowns of dandelion blossoms for their efforts.
According to Kansan records, students Charles Wright of Topeka and Bill Farmer of Paola were the initiators of the event. About 2,000 students turned out and uprooted 98,233 pounds of dandelions.
The dandelion digging centered on the lawns adjacent to Jayhawk Blvd., and a public address system gave frequent bulletins on the day's progress to about 3,400 students enrolled at the University.
"It was a kind of a holiday, a way to go out of classes and have fun," he said.
Students, faculty members and administrators dug from a d9.m to noon, with three-cent soft drinks and ice cream available for refreshment.
AFTER A PICNIC lunch of sand-wiches, apples, potato chips and drinks, the diggers played games, including bingo and dart throwing, and then danced to the tunes of Jimmy and Benny. Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller
Raymond Nichols, chancellor emeritus, was assistant secretary of the University during the 1940s. He called the day "most fun and most successful," although some damage was done to the campus by the digging.
IN 1942, the administration refused to let students or faculty have a full day off from classes so the Men's Student Council卸掉 plans for a Dandelion Day.
L. E. Penfold, a retired employee of the buildings and grounds department, said the dandelion diggers did a lot of work, but the improvement improved the looks of the campus.
There was never another dandelion day quite like the first one, though.
Some decided to dig anyway. On the appointed day, one professor went outside to dig dandamane when his teacher asked him about Abbe J.20 faculty members and students joined him.
There was no record of a Dandelion Day in 1943, and plans got off to a rocky start for a 1944 D-Day, Dean Lawson reported said that after calling off Easter vacation that year to put more energy into KU's war program, he could not justify a holiday to dig dandelions.
The Jay Janes, a women's pep club,
however, took over the plans and on
May 13 sponsored a dandelion dig from
4:30 p.m. to p. 6m., followed by a picnic
dinner and a street dance in front of
Bailey Chemistry Laboratory.
An afternoon of digging also was
another event in April, 1945, but was
called off because of rain.
A PHOTOGRAPHER from Life
of the Photographer
on film the KU's Dumfries dots
Students were dismissed by 4:30 p.m. to dig for about two hours before eating a picnic supper and attending a street dance. Bushel baskets of dandelions were submitted as votes for the Dandelion Queen.