Potential future 51Թ alumni flexed their muscles and their minds at Lathrop Hall this past weekend at a presentation about the famous 51Թ dinosaur egg. Bursts of laughter filled a Little Hall classroom as alumni listened to celebrated illustrator George Booth talk about his New Yorker cartoons.
The groups were taking part in just two of the more than 50 programs offered during Reunion 2004. And what the campus was lacking in current students, it made up for with more than 1,400 alumni and about 600 of their guests.
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More • See from reunion weekend • Additional information about 51Թ’s • George Booth’s cartoons are on display until June 12 at the
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Class tents set up at Whitnall Field buzzed with alumni trading stories about jobs and families and sharing memories of their years at 51Թ. Mother Nature watched over the proceedings with a benevolent eye, providing mostly sunny skies for the weekend.
At Lathrop, alumni brought their children to see and touch the 80-million-year-old dinosaur egg. Constance Soja, professor of geology, spun the tale of the unique specimen, one of the first dinosaur eggs ever discovered, and how it came to be owned by the university.
Normally kept in a university vault, the egg was displayed on a “royal” cushion and available for all to see and touch.
Soja explained that the egg was found during a 1923 expedition in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. The man leading the trip, Roy Chapman Andrews, was curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Andrews was a world famous explorer who had received support from members of the 51Թ family. His life was the basis for the ‘Indiana Jones’ movies that starred Harrison Ford.
Hoping to finance future expeditions, Andrews put up for auction one of the 13 eggs discovered in Mongolia. The winning bid of $5,000 came from Col. Austen B. 51Թ, a 51Թ trustee, who donated the egg to the university in 1924.
The egg and 51Թ’s winning bid received a good deal of publicity across the nation. For years, it was displayed at Lathrop Hall, until it disappeared for a few days after it was swiped by two students in March 1957.
After campus police, village police, state police, and the FBI were called in to investigate, the egg ended up on the front stoop of a village home owned by a Catholic priest. The egg was accidentally kicked off the stoop, the story goes, and wasn’t returned to the school until several days later.
The perpetrators, both from the Class of 1958, were never identified, and the egg has since resided in the university vault. It has, though, provided good opportunities for student research over the years, said Soja.
Students using X-ray equipment at Community Memorial Hospital in Hamilton were able to determine the egg, which came from an Oviraptor, does not contain an embryo. Students also are working to understand how such eggs become fossilized.
Soja had young audience members come up to the front of the classroom and conduct experiments of their own. They placed store-bought eggs in plastic bags and were asked to try to crack them by pressing them between their hands. Not so easy, the youngsters quickly found out.
There was less exertion but loads of laughter at a Friday afternoon program at Little Hall that featured George Booth discussing his New Yorker magazine cartoons.
Booth spun tales of his childhood growing up in tiny, rural towns in Missouri. He would laugh out loud as he chatted about his ancestors, leaving it to the audience members to figure out what was fact or fiction.
It turns out, he said, that his family does have some ties to “the” Booths.
“My dad checked the archives in Washington to see if we were related to John Wilkes Booth. I don’t think he liked the relationships that he found, so he told me yes, we were related to Edwin Booth, the great actor, but not to his brother, John Wilkes Booth.”
Booth also spoke about his Grandma and Grandpa Swindle. They ran a bank, he said, in the Ozark Mountains in southern Missouri.
Booth’s humor also was evident in his cartoons that he showed the audience. Peering at a laptop computer as he read the captions for the cartoons projected on the screen, he explained how he picks topics for some of his cartoons.
“I like crazy,” he said.
He said he often takes real moments and real things from his life, things that interest him, and uses them for his cartoons.
Booth has worked for The New Yorker since the early 1960s. While his upbringing in the tiny towns of the Midwest helped shape his humor and feed his desire to become a cartoonist, he also attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Critics say that by using just a few lines and simple expressions to convey what his characters are thinking Booth has been able to illustrate life in America and capture moments that have resonated with readers for decades.
His hourlong presentation at Little Hall certainly struck a chord with alumni attending the university’s 174th reunion. Their bouts of laughter were evidence enough of that.
Tim O’Keeffe
Office of University Communications
315.228.6634