#672 – Dick Bernard: Remembering Valley City (ND) State Teachers College 1958-64

NOTE: There will be continuing updates and additions to this post, which will include all additional items. Suggestion that you bookmark this page, if interested in 1958-64 at VCSTC.  Here is a companion post including pdf copy of every page of the 1960-61 Viking News (13 issues, 76 pages).

In the era before phones were ubiquitous…1960 at the hall phone at VCSTC

UPDATES as of March 2, 2013:
1. Memories as shared by some graduates January, 2013: VCSTC MEMORIES JANUARY 2013rev2
2. VCSTC Faculty, Staff and Times: VCSTC Faculty and Times 1958-64rev2
2A. Photos of all Faculty and Staff at VCSTC 1958-64 should be accessible to all in a Facebook album accessible here.
3. Qualities of Memorable Teachers, as shared by teachers: here
4. Remembering Dean of Men Lou Bruhn: here
5. Some pages from the 1960 Viking Annual: Viking 1960111
6. Public Education in North Dakota, some thoughts: here
7. Leila Whitinger (class of 1963) remembers VCSTC here.
8. Mike, VCSTC’s Mr. Moore, a Civics Lesson and Freedom of Speech here
9. Catholic Pope’s remembered, Dick Bernard, here
10. A North Dakota State-wide Civics and Geography test from 1957, including a connection with Soren Kolstoe here
11. Loretta (Welk) Jung (class of 1964) presents a program about her cousin, Lawrence Welk here.
12. Hank Toring ’64 remembers construction of Interstate 94 near Valley City: HANK TORING. Here is a description of I-94 History in North Dakota.
13. Remembering two weddings in Valley City 50 years ago, June 8, 1963, here.
14. Dr. Soren Kolstoe’s poetry about North Dakota, here.
15. A visit to Valley City and Sykeston ND July 5 and 6, 2013, here.
16. A visit to the VCSU campus, October 24, 2013, here.
17. A road trip from North Dakota to California, Summer 1941, here.

Watching the 1960 United States Election Returns

(click to enlarge photos)

Dedication page of 1960 Viking Annual. See Carole Flatau text below.

Text from above page – 1960 Viking Annual

VCSTC Campus 1960 not including Euclid or East Hall. From Viking News May, 1961

Ordinarily I escape solicitors, especially by phone, so it was a happy mistake when I answered the call to enroll in the 2012 Alumni Directory project for Valley City State University, my alma mater over 50 years earlier. (Here’s an aerial map of today’s Valley City including the College)
There had been a previous Directory, in 2003, and I had purchased that as well.
Both are books. The 2003 version was 300 pages, and included only eight people with e-addresses who I knew ‘back then’.
The 2012 edition has about 335 pages, including nearly 40 people with e-addresses who I at least knew back in those long ago years. This edition also includes a CD-ROM.

At walking bridge, looking north Sep 21, 1986

The old walking bridge Sep. 21, 1986

September 21, 1986

Back in those long-ago college years, I doubt any of us, perhaps even our most astute faculty back then, could have even actively imagined the e-mails, facebook, twitter, etc., etc., etc. that exploded onto the scene about 20 years later! George Orwell in his 1949 novel “1984” talked about “telescreens”. 1984 was a long ways in the future, then. Wow.
Back in “ought three” as old-timers might say about 2003, I initiated a conversation of reminiscences with the few in the old crowd who I could reach by e-mail. Fortuitously (it turned out), I kept the recollections in an e-file, which even more fortuitously survived assorted subsequent computer crashes and a change from Microsoft to Mac technology three years ago. (I go by many accurate descriptors, but “geek” is not one of them. At the same time, I can do the rudimentary navigation required to survive in the 21st century).
Shortly after the 2012 Directory came out, I made contact with those brave souls who had chosen to reveal their e-mail addresses in the book.
I then decided to transfer the old memories (with permission of the writers of the time) to a pdf document remembering 1958-61 at Valley City State Teachers College, as written February-April, 2003. That 54 page document is accessible here, in 14 point Times New Roman: VCSTC Memories recorded Feb
During VCSTC times I had, for some unremembered reason, be come the Sports Editor of the 1960 Viking Annual, then Editor of the Viking News in 1960-61.
Thanks to Mary Hagen Canine, I have the entire set of that years Viking News (as I have the old annuals as well).
As a New Years Day project, I decided to make a Facebook album of the photos which appeared in the Viking News in 1960-61. You can see them here. Simply click on an individual picture to enlarge it somewhat. Since the original photos were screened for printing at the Valley City Times Record, they are not high resolution. (The news photographer, I learned from the 1960 annual, was Gerhard Ovrebo, who all aspiring scientists at STC would well remember!)
In fact, as a final part of this little new years project, I decided to pdf the Faculty pages of the 1961 Annual, which you can see here (Mr. Ovrebo and camera on page 22): VCSTC Admin 59-60001.
Ah, the memories.
It occurs to me, at age 72, that those faculty who I thought were ancient at the time I was a student, were actually much younger than I am today. So is how it goes.
If you wish to add to the memory bank of the reminiscences, feel free to e-mail me at [dick.bernard@icloud.com as of 2021]. Additional memories of others will be assembled and shared on or after February 1. If you wish a memory shared, please give your specific permission to republish when you submit the memory.
Some photos from Yearbooks 1959-62:

Old Main 1959-60

Bridge 1959-60

Assembly 1959-60

Dr. Lokken 1960-61

East/Euclid 1959-60

Mythaler Hall 1959-60

Then and Now….

Dick Bernard, Freshman VCSTC, sometime in 1958-59

Dick Bernard making a Peace Site presentation at Twin Cities public TV Channel 2, St. Paul MN, January 25, 2013