The Undergraduate Chair
SAY, WHAT DO YOU THINK about having Billy Rose bring up the Aquacade for Carnival this year?" Johnnie Rand asked as he watched groups of men slogging through mud six inches deep on the° campus. He might have been kidding, but conditions really looked a little rough with Winter Carnival less than a month off. New England Christmas driving had been grand, New York reservoirs got a small refill, some said the winter wheat was getting a break, but in Hanover Coach Walter Prager was going mad—he was making artificial snow in his deep freeze.
This, then, was the opening scene when the men of Dartmouth came back to finish their last lap of the first semester no snow, no ice, plenty of time for study, and plenty of mud.
But no one had counted on Teddy Bamberger '50, diminutive sparkplug and head of this season's Carnival Committee. He refused to confirm it, but there are reports that he got out in the middle of campus one night, knelt, and looked up at an overcast sky to pray. He called on "the powers that be" and asked for a break. Like a true Indian, he told the Rain God to go get lost somewhere; he asked the Snow God to quit horsing around and start making with the white stuff; and two days later the little man got action seven inches of snow and a drop in the mercury to sub-zero weather, and the wheels for Winter Carnival of 1950 started to turn.
Like a lot of other things, Carnival seems to be a product of evolution. Back in 1911, Hanover started popping with its first Carnival. At that time a ceremony in the middle of campus called Outdoor Evening was combined with a Carnival ball. Throughout the years Outdoor Evening picked up a little more color in the form of a county fair, and later, a masquerade ball. In '29 a toboggan slide in the stadium took Outdoor Evening off the campus, the dance stayed inside, and prizes started to be offered for work in snow sculpture. In '29, too, the first giant statue was erected in the center of campus.
In the '30s, Carnival assumed the form of pageantry. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs got into the act in 1930. In '35 Outdoor Evening switched to the golf course and a miniature Norwegian Ice Carnival was staged against a backdrop of prefabricated buildings and canvas flats. In '37 and '38 local skating talent performed for one or two minutes each before a backdrop of ice blocks, plywood buildings and red neon lights.
Things started to look up in '39 when Walter Wanger '15 came on from Hollywood to do the picture, Winter Carnival. Ann Sheridan carried the feminine lead, the DOC got the big play, and the Dartmouth Carnival took another big step.
Since 1939, then, Carnival has had its face lifted. In place of the red neon lights, Wanger showed the advantage of the spotlight and the colored slide for softening or hardening the effect. We cut in more on the town's electric power where once we were armed with a few dry-cell batteries and a pocketful of candles Yes, Carnival has had a lot of replacements, but it's never had a replacement for a lot of snow, ice, and low temperatures. Not even Hollywood can find substitutes for these.
With the ALUMNI MAGAZINE going to press weeks before the 1950 edition of the ice pageant, we can only wonder and venture fond hopes of the outcome, but things are shaping up. Scaffolding for the center of campus snow sculpture is getting underway. This year, Steve Johnson '50 came through with his second winner in three years. His clay model of a polar bear playing an accordion will run 25 feet high when completed in snow and ice.
As in the past, there will be four events in skiing: the Friday morning cross-country race, the downhill, the slalom, and the Saturday afternoon jump. Walter Prager is almost smiling, but he is still watching the skies and hoping for more snow.
Light Up the Sky will have a four-day run in Robinson Hall and will bring back Ann Hopkins Potter, former Carnival Queen, to play the female lead. The play will be a good one with Jeff O'Connell '51, Eleanor Murtagh, Marjorie Smith, and Warren Pfaff '51 giving the holiday audience more laughs than they've had since You Can't Take It With You.
Across campus in Webster Hall, Paul Zeller and the Dartmouth Glee Club will give two concerts; and, on Saturday night, the Undergraduate Council sponsors Ted Herbert's band to supply the music for the traditional Carnival Ball.
Down on the football field, ice and snow pageantry is scheduled to break out in full array. A story in verse will be told to the swing and sway of over 75 skaters. The crowning of the Queen will be heralded with fireworks and skiers who will shoot down the steep grandstand slope.
And there is more. On Saturday morning the Dartmouth hockey team takes a shot at Princeton; that night Yale and Dartmouth have to go at it on the basketball court. In Spaulding Pool, Yale will match strokes with Karl Michael's Big Green mermen.
So you can see we've got our hands full. We've got semester exams, and we've got to cut down on our eating and start pinching pennies in order to finance our own Carnival Queens. We're planning to have every man on the Hanover Plain working on at least one of the many events which go to make up the biggest winter festival in the states. Yes, mamas and papas, we're busy. We've assumed responsibilities which might stagger you if you were here to contemplate their size. You may sit back and chuckle at us upstarts, \but some of us are realizing that Dartmouth is the last step before we're on our own. We're realizing, too, that putting over a Winter Carnival, accepting the responsibility of seeing that "the show goes on," striving to maintain the traditions of the past, is all part of growing up.
PRIZE-WINNING POSTER: Colin Stewart '4B, ace skier and art major, puts the finishing touches on the design chosen for 1950 Winter Carnival.
