From Our Photo Files
From Our Readers:
We asked for it, and we got it!
Barely had the Winter 2006 FOCUS been sent to the mailhouse when we began receiving answers to our questions about an old slide once used by the College’s Admissions Office. The only notation printed on this slide was the word “Colorado.”
Pauline Hudspeth Wood ’40 called first to let us know that her daughter, Amy Wood Salazar ’74, was in the photo (second from left), and her friend, Beth Buchanan ’74, was third from left. She told us that the trip was to Arizona during Interim, a fact confirmed by six other alumni. Bradford Hague ’74 reported that the female on the left was Darcy Phillips. Because of the picture quality, no one could positively identify the students on the right, but Buchanan did e-mail us to share her “best guess” for the student second from right: M. Margaret Jefferson ’74. Most replies indicated that the photo was taken in November or December, 1972 or 1973.
In his e-mail, Hague explained that the Interim class was entitled “Desert Ecology,” and that the photo was taken at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Organized by the late Dr. A. Randolph Shields ‘34, the course was intended for biology majors, but other students enrolled. “This educational immersion was one of the greatest learning experiences that I had at Maryville College,” he wrote. “I am certain that those of us who were on this trip still remember the night we spent on the sand dunes near Yuma, Calif., getting blasted by a terrific wind storm. I had to bury my little nylon mountain tent in the sand during the middle of the night to prevent it from getting shredded. Fortunately, Mike Wenkstern ’75 and John Sortino ’75 had room in their heavy-duty canvas tent for me.”
As for our question “Can you safely lean against a cactus?” Hague answered: “I actually remember when the photo was taken. The intent was to appear as if they were leaning on the Organ Pipe Cactus, when, indeed, they were not.”
Tom Taylor ’70, who was on the biology department faculty with Shields and accompanied him on two Interim trips to Arizona, e-mailed us with much of the same information, but added that in the early 1970s, various off-campus trips were organized so that biology majors could experience a temperate forest ecosystem, a desert ecosystem, a coral reef ecosystem and a semitropical swamp ecosystem by the time they graduated.
[Editor’s Note: We ran out of production time and space to include the following e-mail, but decided to add it here in the web version.]
“You may already have this information, or it may be too late for the summer issue of FOCUS, but here’s part of your answer: I think the students in front of the cactus are (left to right): Bonnie Cassidy Page ’74, Amy Wood Salazar ’74, Beth Buchanan ’74, (don’t recognize 4th person), and Sue Deremigi Sadolsky‘75.
“There was a trip to Saguaro National Park in AZ during Interim term one December. Don’t know if this Colorado photo could be from an extension of that trip or not.
“The year was probably 1972-74, since Bonnie, Beth, and Amy graduated in 1974.
“Hope this helps. I always enjoy the FOCUS, as well as the Scot-e-Newsletter! Thanks so much!”
-- Anna Ruth Prochazka Long ’75
