Why Pacific?

By Jim Silkensen '67

I grew up in Denver and in high school was very shy and bashful.  My high school counselor recognized this and recommended that I pick a college far enough from home that I would be on my own and not going home every weekend.  

From two vacations in the Pacific Northwest,  I loved Oregon and wanted a smaller university, so I picked Pacific out of a college catalog. A very lucky choice!

Pacific had a student body of about 1,200 at that time  and I was quickly able to make friends. In addition, class sizes were small enough that I got to know my professors and it was obvious that they cared about their students and imparting knowledge that would help us succeed following graduation.  

I particularly remember Dr. Prince's English literature courses that fostered my love of reading and writing, Dr. Chips bringing history to life and his "blue book" essay questions that forced us to really study and see the big picture, Doc Roberts' biology courses that were great fun and great learning experiences, band/orchestra/choir under the leadership of Mr. Shaw, Mr. Busch & Mr. Spiro and Art Wilcox's speech class that forced me to get up and speak in front of others and started me on my way to a skill that turned out to be essential in every job that I held.  

Gamma Sigma fraternity pushed me into asking girls to dances, working as a team with my fraternity brothers on various projects and running for class office. Pacific's traditions were also very meaningful to me, including the annual Wassail Party, the Hawaiian Club's annual Lu'au and the Noise Parade & Freshman Bonfire at homecoming. 

I also met the love of my life and my wife of 45+ years, Candace (Willson) Silkensen '69. We were married by Professor McDowell at First Congregational Church and had our wedding reception in Washburne Hall. 

Silkensen '67 submitted this blog as a response to the Notes from Under the Oaks column from the February 2014 Alumni eNews. To read more news from the University and alumni, please visit www.pacificu.edu/alumni/news.

Story behind Boxer becoming Mascot

Jolley '68, OD '70 

By Jerry Jolley '68, OD '70 

Bruce, you are all wrong about Boxer……

Yes, Bruce Bishop '68,  I mean you….

Now keep in mind that no one is working harder than Bruce to make the Class of ’68 Reunion a fun event for us all. But he has the Boxer Mascot issue ALL WRONG.

Bruce recently sent me an email suggesting this article should mention the leadership role of the ’67-’68 ASPU Student Council in changing Pacific’s mascot from “a moth-eaten Badger to a brassy Boxer.” 

That part is very accurate, but Bruce went on to say that the switch to Boxer in 1968 is “important history for our class (and the entire University community) to celebrate. Who would have thought 45 years ago that the change would still be symbolizing Pacific's quirkiness?”

There it is, that word “quirkiness.” How can Bruce use it to describe our University and our beloved Boxer mascot? Okay, I will agree today’s student may think it a little quirky that in 1968, Friday’s dinners in the dining hall required dresses for women and ties/long pants for men. And maybe it was a little quirky by today’s standards that men’s and women’s dorms were strictly segregated, not even allowing coed visits. And looking back in the ’67 yearbook, the fact that Mike Staples was “Standards Chairman” and Craig Stout was “Cultural Chairman” may also have signaled a bit of early quirkiness.

But how could Boxer becoming Mascot be considered “quirky?” Boxer represented, and I trust still represents, the best of each Pacific student’s fighting spirit and stamina. Boxer represents strength, having been cast in the Ming Dynasty in about 1580, surviving the Boxer Rebellion in China and being gifted to Pacific in 1896. 

Wow, in my mind boxer still represents extreme strength. In one boxer fight I wormed my way into the center crunch to finally get a hand on him/her, only to be squashed like a bug by some bulky football player. Remember how the yelling of “Boxer Flash” on campus would get everyone’s blood boiling. And a “Boxer Throw Out” would often result in an on-campus rough-and-tumble fight which could last many hours. I believe the Thetas once even beat up the optometry students (by breaking their glasses) to gain control of Boxer in front of Marsh Hall, but you will need to check that fact with Don James at the reunion.

Boxer definitely represented strength. During a boxer throw out, you could even come in late and muddy to Dr. Reif’s ethics class and not get much more trouble than a disapproving look over the top of his glasses.

So in ’67 when funding for a new Benny Badger mascot uniform came before Student Council, we decided not to replace the moldy old weasel who had been bloodied and bruised by several recent team losses. I think it was Student Body Vice President, Scott Pike, who came up with the idea of making our new mascot the beloved Boxer.

My first stop was with Dean Charles Trombley, a wonderful man and sage adviser  who shrugged and said something like “sounds good if you can get it done.”

In retrospect, I think Dean Trombley was just very happy that I was not telling him we were planning to burn down Forest Grove city center or Old College Hall to protest the Viet Nam war. The late 60’s were a tumultuous time for our country, and many students were taking activist roles. I would get calls weekly from other student body presidents across the nation asking me to fly somewhere for a peace rally.

My reasons for staying home from student peace demonstrations were:

1) As a guy fresh-off-the-Idaho-ranch, I naively and incorrectly figured our country’s leaders always knew what was best,

2) Our student body was divided on the war, all of us having both anti-war friends and friends who had military school funding,

3) I knew the Index editors would rip me to shreds if I used ASPU funds to fly to D.C. to a protest rally,

4) I couldn’t miss work or give up study time for that next mid-term, and

5) There was a cute California girl on campus I wanted to ask on a date. (Her parents were so conservative they made Richard Nixon look like a liberal, and I knew if I trotted off to a protest somewhere, my chances of a farmer-from-Idaho like me getting a date with her would be completely dead.)

So we turned our energy to adopting Boxer as mascot. We took the idea to fraternities, sororities, administrators and other key groups for discussion. Finally the ASPU Student Council, after some heated discussion, gave us a unanimous vote to make the change to Boxer on December 13, 1967.

Members of the ASPU Student Council

Bruce, 45 years of Boxer cannot be considered “quirky” but rather “brilliant.” Even the Heart of Oak editors wrote in the 1968 yearbook, “all of us can be proud our Temple Dog Boxer tradition, and with this change in mascots our pride in that tradition can become even greater: now the Boxer can truly serve his calling as the SPIRIT OF PACIFIC.”

So all of us should let the BOXER SPIRIT move us. Let’s get together for Homecoming, October 10-13. All of you, including fellow optometry-types, please come for some fun and bring your golf clubs.

By the way, I was able to date that pretty California girl.  We married 43 years ago. Peggy Spencer Jolley and I will both be at Homecoming. Please introduce yourself and say hello.

If you like the idea that we changed to the Boxer mascot 45 years ago, when I see you at Homecoming please give me credit. If you think the change was a bad move, please discuss your complaints at length with Scott Pike.

Even though I have been giving Bruce Bishop a bad time with this article, please know that we all owe a debt of gratitude to Bruce and the other Homecoming Reunion Committee members for the Class of 1968: Judy (Engdall) Bishop, Monica (Wolf) Marvin and Scott E. Pike.

Jolley '68, OD '70 was the ASPU President for the '67-'68 school year and will celebrate 45 years since graduation during Homecoming 2013. This piece was originally used for the Class of 1968 Reunion Newsletter. He is currently living in California and practicing optometry. 

Spring | A Time for Revitalizing the Events Calendar

Moshofsky at Patton Valley Winery

By Ginger Moshofsky

Now that I have been here all of four months, I am more excited than ever to plan, implement and create interesting and fun events that will get all of us together.

I have loved getting to know many of you and I loved meeting the Alumni Board and the Trustees a few weeks ago. I also had a wonderful time with the Golden Guard on March 14 and am already thinking about how I can get together and visit with them again.

I heard of an event done successfully at another school that I would love to do here. It is an event that would bring the 1960s to life as a theatrical experience through the reading of letters and journals written to and from students while they were in school at Pacific. It's called the Pacific Letters Project. If you come across your journals from college, please consider submitting them to alumni@pacificu.edu or by postal mail.

Alumni Relations staff at Patton Valley winery

I am thinking about ways to integrate more family friendly events and opportunities at Homecoming and throughout the year.

How about a croquet game where the wickets are costumed theater students who may or may not stand still as you try to play through.

You and your family can look forward to the Boxer Bingo game we are creating for Homecoming 2013.

The Alumni Relations staff recently visited local wineries to plan the wine tour during Homecoming weekend which sparked many ideas on possible events we can plan throughout the year.

I would love to design an arts season where for one price and one registration, you could attend a variety of musical and theatrical performances and gallery exhibitions by current Pacific students, with a dessert reception before or after the show.

I am busy planning the Trivia PUB Night featuring Byron Steiger at the Lucky Lab in May. There will be rivalry, revelry and prizes. You can view all of the upcoming events at www.pacificu.edu/alumni.

I would love to know your thoughts. Do you like any of these ideas? Do you have ideas of your own? Please share with us. Call, email or come by and visit. The Abbott Alumni Center, 2209 Cedar Street, is your home on the Pacific campus in Forest Grove.

You are always welcome to come home!

Moshofsky is the assistant director of alumni relations and can be reached at ginger@pacificu.edu or 503-352-2828. In her spare time, Moshofsky enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters, volunteering as vice president of Mask and Mirror Community Theatre and writes stories about her hometown of Tualatin for The Oregonian.

Discovering the Bonfire and Noise Parade

By Jessica Giles

71 foot bonfire from Homecoming '67

“The falling leaves, the crisp night air, the cheering from the grandstand and the blazing fire - these things tell us - fall is here.” This quote was taken from the Class of 1954’s yearbook. What intrigued me about this quote was “the blazing fire” as that is what my search was all about.

In planning for Homecoming 2012, we wanted to showcase a few of the traditional events as segments in our monthly alumni eNews, particularly the Noise Parade and Bonfire. So here I am, only five months in to my employment at Pacific, and I am writing about a tradition I have never experienced.

This is where my search begins.

Of course I’ve already been told the essentials of the Noise Parade and Bonfire, but to just write about that is not much of an article. I wanted to dig deep, get to the roots, and find where, when and how this tradition began.

I started my search by talking to a few members of the University community. Steve Klein, Director of University Center and Student Activities, took me a little bit deeper with his stories of outhouses being at the top of the bonfire which was created by the freshman and ownership of the Noise Parade belonging to the Greeks. Jeri Dobbs ’58 shared his memories of the multiple days spent “engineering” the bonfire, how it blazed two to three stories high, and when it was lit, it was “the most spectacular thing seen.”

These conversations fed my desire to know more about the traditions. I spent days researching yearbooks and archived copies of The Index in hope to find the answers to my questions. What I found was inspiring, but what I didn’t find was a little disappointing.

What I can tell you about the tradition of the Bonfire and Noise Parade is this:

Queen Virginia lights the bonfire during Homecoming '69

• The first yearbook to mention the Bonfire was in 1912 and the first index reference to a Parade and Bonfire was in 1909.
• The Noise Parade and Bonfire was held the night before football games.
• The football team and coaches gave speeches around the fire getting the crowd amped for the game the next day.
• The freshman did indeed build the fires, back then they were referred to as “frosh” or “rooks” and the Bonfire was sometimes called the “Rook Bonfire.”
• In the beginning, the Noise Parade was led by the marching band with crowds following behind them through the town singing and chanting Pacific spirit.
• There was some sort of “serpentine” or “serpent” involved in the Noise Parade for some of the years. It led the parade in some way.
• Competition between opposing teams often meant for a prematurely lit bonfire which often led students to burning a creation of the opposing team’s mascot in the bonfire.
• The Homecoming queen would often light the bonfire.
• The first reference to Greeks in the Noise Parade was in 1926; however it was referenced as a separate parade from the actual Noise Parade.
• The first year to recognize an award for best entry in the Noise Parade was in 1934 and was given to the Gamma Sigma Fraternity.
• Each year the bonfire was reportedly bigger than the year before, however in 1967 the bonfire reached a height of 71 feet, which was the tallest one I found record of.

The Alpha Zeta fraternity at Noise Parade in '46

What I can’t tell you about the tradition is this:

• When the first Noise Parade and Bonfire was.
• Why the responsibility of building the bonfire was left to the freshman.
• When the Noise Parade was taken over as a Greek event.
• What exactly the serpentine was and when that tradition started and ended.
• If the 1967 bonfire was truly the tallest in history.
• Plus a whole bunch more…

When I sat down to write my article for the Alumni eNews, I realized I don’t really have an article to write. With so many holes still in my story, what I would have written would have been from imagination rather than facts. Not to say that wouldn’t have been interesting. What I don’t know is what wasn’t documented on paper, but instead stored in the memories of Pacific’s alumni. 

So what do you remember about this tradition? Can you help fill in any of my blanks? I would love to hear more about this long lived tradition and hopefully fill in some of the gaps. We can add your memories to the Memory Books given out during the weekend. To fill out a memory book form visit www.pacificu.edu/events/homecoming/memories.cfm

I hope to hear these stories and more at Homecoming 2012, September 28-30. Join us in celebration. Registration will be available soon at pacificu.edu/homecoming.

Giles is the Associate Director of Alumni Relations at Pacific University. Originally from St. Pete, Florida, Giles moved to Oregon to pursue a degree in Marketing and Advertising Management from Portland State University where she graduated in 2009. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, home projects and planning her wedding in spring of 2013.