From Medicine to Journalism King E. Durkee '44 My most memorable experience at Weber College was getting in. I was on my way to work at Hill Field early one morning when I passed the old Weber College Gymnasium. There was quite a line of people. I was curious and simply got in the line. The next thing I knew I was signing up to attend college. I was 24 years old and had never been to high school. Nobody asked me about high school when I registered. Not too long after the term began, representatives of the armed services came to school, and I joined the Army. As the term went on, various groups - sailors in the Navy, the Marines - were called to active duty. Finally it was the turn of the men who had joined the Army. Just before we were to depart, President Henry Aldous Dixon received a communication from the Army ordering me and about six others to remain in school as pre-med students. When the school year came to an end, I asked Dr. Dixon what we should do, since Weber was not holding summer school. The answer was that we were to continue in school for the summer. Utah State Agricultural College (as it was known in those days) offered a full year of organic chemistry in one concentrated summer quarter. I took it. After another year at Weber, I graduated in 1944 and asked Dr. Dixon what to do next. He contacted the Army and was told that I should continue taking classes to complete my pre-med requirements. Brigham Young University was offering a concentrated course of physics in one summer quarter. I took it. Then regular sessions started again in the fall. I had been accepted at the University of Utah College of Medicine, but not until a later date. With time on my hands, I took courses at the University of Utah Law School and got a job as a newspaper reporter on the Salt Lake Tribune. When it was time for me to enter medical school, I got a call from the registrar's office. "Mr. Durkee, you're sched- uled to enter medical school here next week, and we want to bring our records up to date. We don't have a record of where you graduated from high school." I said, "I'm not surprised. I didn't go to high school." "Not at all?" "Not a day." I discussed with the registrar the situation many young men found themselves in during the Great Depression. The upshot was that I was required to sit down one afternoon and take high school equivalency exams. I passed them easily. I went to medical school, but hated it. My heart ached to return to being a reporter. After a year, I told the dean I was leaving medical college to be a reporter. He offered to pay for a degree in psychiatry if I stayed, but he also said that he thought it was smart to do the thing I really wanted to do in life. I went back, not to the Salt Lake Tribune, but to the Deseret News. I stayed there 10 years, then accepted a job as managing editor of the San Diego Union. I subsequently became editor and then executive editor of that newspaper. I am still employed by the organization, Copley Newspapers. This is my 50th year as a journalist. I have devoted much of my time to public service, including four terms as president and vice president of the Board of Governors of204 California community colleges. No, I never did get to high school, but thanks to my Weber College experience, I ended up attending four universities, a school of law, a school of medicine, and becoming editor of a major American newspaper. The gymnasium King E. Durkee 30 Ten Paddles, Please Gene Hansen '45 During World War II the men's social clubs at Weber College were put in mothballs until after the war. The Wildcat Club was started to fill the void. Initiations, meetings, and activities were held; several current members of the Emeriti Alumni Council were part of that club. Members being initiated were required to carry a special leather paddle with them at all times, and when they saw a member, they would have to ask him if he would please give them ten paddles. They usually did. The photo shows me and Ray Peccarilli using the paddle. The spelling of Ray's last name is probably incorrect, but I think he changed it to Adams anyway. During the fall of 1944, United States Savings Bond drives were a patriotic activity. One such drive was initiated by the women on campus with the prizes being dates with some of the few men attending Weber College at the time. The savings bonds, called war bonds, were sold by the women, and the dollar figure that each sold was used to buy a date at an auction held at a special assembly. The exact amount bid for each date has been long forgotten, but most were in the hundreds and some were in the thousands. The dates were finally consolidated into one group date. There were approximately ten dates, and we all went to Kay's Noodle Parlor for dinner. The hot item on the menu was Chinese Pork Noodles for fifty cents. Initiation by paddling American Flags on Lockers Nuana Hyde Esterholdt '43 remember a very special event that occurred early in my freshman year at Weber College. The date was December 8, 1941. It was a Monday, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. All of the students of the school were assembled in the auditorium to hear an important radio broadcast. We listened intently to the voice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he stated that December 7th was a date that would live in infamy and declared that our country was at war with Japan. Soon small American flags began to appear on lockers in the halls, as young man after young man left to serve in some branch of the armed forces. When I graduated in 1943, the war was still being fought, and there were only twenty-three male names on the graduation list. Nuana Hyde Esterholdt Closeness George Handy '44 We were a family at Weber College with a closeness students and faculty. Some of the faculty that taught us and inspired us to be worthwhile, contributing citizens were Orson Whitney Young, Leland Monson, Marian Treseder Read, and David Trevithick. The students I remember were Mark Austad, Jennings Olson, Lou Jean Scoffield, Rodney Dunn, Bill Boyington, Earl Perkins, Rama Eyre, and Lew Cook. There were lots of good-looking girls on campus. I remember when Sigma Delta Pi had a rabbit hunt with intramural points for rabbit ears. There were fun canyon parties and great assemblies. Orson Whitney Young 31