Memoriabilia

 A 1934 Dance Card
Eugene Dusterberry was the Hall president in 1934. Recently the Bowles Hall Fall Informal Dance Card of his date, Kathleen O'Brien, turned up on eBay and was added to the memorabilia collection of Bill Ragsdale. Here as an email from the seller:

"How interesting you have a link to Kathleen O'Brien, or as we all knew her "Auntie Kay." She was my father-in-laws cousin, but they grew up together in the same house for many years and were more like brother and sister. Her parents, Lucy Ann Fagan and Austin O'Brien three children, Louis, Belinda and Kathleen.  They all attended a Catholic School and while Kathleen didn't attend College, she was known to date a few college boys. There was one in particular that she dated for quite some time, probably  Eugene Dusterberry.  Anyway, that was her dance card and I thought how sweet that she wrote in the back of it what she wore and that she had a lovely time.  She passed away in 1998. We inherited her estate and as much as I love old ephemera, she just had so much that I put some of the ! items up for auction. She saved every birthday card, valentines card, etc. Thanks for your interest,  Teri"

The Big Green Bottle
In May 1947, during finals week, a group of 7 or 8 guys from the Hall took a truck (either one of the group had a pickup or they borrowed the flat bed truck from the company that delivered vegetables to the Hall). They picked up a large green cement bottle from a winery in Livermore that was used as an advertisement for the winery. It sat along the highway. I don't remember the name of the winery [Ed, either Wenti or Concannon]. The bottle was hollow, dark green and about 10 feet tall. It came apart in the middle, so 7 or 8 people could lift one half at a time. They brought the bottle back to Bowles and set it up on what was then a vacant lot right in front of Bowles Hall. We all enjoyed it for a couple of days. I believe that the group of 7 or 8 planned to return the bottle when finals were over, but one morning we woke up to see that someone had pulverized the cement bottle. It looked like many people with sledge hammers had broken it into very small pieces.
 
Later we were reminded that President Truman was speaking at commencement in the stadium the following day and the Secret Service had made sure that there was no threat to the President from the bottle.  Bill Grafft