Reunions
Lessons Learned
Outside of Class
Watching Jubilee, One Last Time, Again
Sometimes the most important les-
sons go beyond what the professor
teaches. What Ralph Eanes ’ 61 of
Thomasville learned in his freshman
German class in 1957 changed his
world view. Surprised to see that one
of the first black students on campus
had bested him academically in the
rigorous class, Eanes thought, “This
isn’t what I learned in Thomasville.”
With the country on the cusp of
integration, the social order Eanes had
grown up with was about to change.
“It wasn’t just the classes that educated
me,” he said.
On Saturday, Rollie Tillman ’ 55
moderated a panel of alumni from the
’60s and ’70s and soon-to-be graduates, comparing life across generations.
The class of 2011 has cell phones. In
the 1960s, calls from a dorm went
through a pay phone in the hall. The
oldsters furnished dorm rooms with
typewriters, not refrigerators.
The class of 2011 might have had
better dining hall options, but the students in the ’60s feasted on life. Jane
Smith Patterson ’ 61 recalled that “our
class grabbed the mantle of building
the New South.” White alumni talked
of visiting rural high schools to recruit
black students to campus, protesting
the Speaker Ban and the Vietnam War,
meeting John F. Kennedy as he campaigned for president and talking with
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The youngsters had their turmoil to
live with: an economy that crashed; the
murder of their student body president; and the precautionary measures
of every dorm’s front door being
locked and recorded announcements
in the library not to leave belongings
unattended.
But they all left UNC different
people than when they entered.
“Carolina changed my life,” said
Eanes, who went on to become a
Methodist minister. “It was a new
world for me, and it has never been
the same.”
Rick Gibbs ’ 71 of Montague, Canada,
made a career as a cameraman for the
Canadian Broadcasting Co. He worked for
UNC-TV as an undergraduate majoring
in radio, television and motion pictures.
He was at the last Jubilee campus music
festival in 1971 with his camera, of course.
Thomas Wolfe, Time and Tears
Warren Olsen ’ 51 of Vernon, N.J., dis-
covered you can go home again, though
it might leave you a little teary-eyed. He
and his wife, Marilyn, sat with Joe
Williard ’ 51 and his wife, Sally, of
Kernersville in the dimly lit historic
Playmakers Theatre on Saturday morning
to hear English Professor Christopher
Mead Armitage’s lecture, “No, Mr. Wolfe,
You Can Go Home Again, But ….”
Armitage talked about various charac-
ters in literature through the centuries
and their treks home, from Homer’s
Odyssey to Harold Pinter’s The
Homecoming, with stops along the way for
works by T.S. Eliot, Alfred Lord Tennyson,
Thomas Wolfe ’ 20 and Robert Frost, who
wrote: “Home is where, when you have
to go there, they have to take you in.”
Olsen and Williard, best buds in col-
lege, hadn’t been back to campus for 60
years. They’ve kept up their friendship,
but hadn’t laid eyes on each other since
graduation. So when Williard called and
suggested they meet up at reunion
weekend, he didn’t have to twist Olsen’s
arm.
