With the D.O.C.
WITH first-semester finals a thing of the past, the minds of most undergraduates have turned thankfully to bigger and better things. The big thing this time of year means one thing - Winter Carnival, whether the attraction be the Glee Club performance, the Outdoor Evening show, or simply the little woman who is making one of her four annual visits to Hanover plain. The Outing Club office has taken on its usual hectic atmosphere as the members of the Carnival Council and Division work feverishly to tie up all the last-minute details and still find time to meet the date on the 3:48 train at White Town.
The finishing touches have been applied to the center of campus statue, a grinning whale who toothsomely greets all comers to Hanover. The Winter Sports Division has placed its last cross-country marker in place for Friday's race and the 40-meter jumping hill has been packed for the thirty contestants who will soar off into space the following afternoon. Judges and timers have been briefed for the downhill and slalom races and now Walt Prager's skiers get set to defend last year's Carnival championship.
Out on the golf course the Outdoor Evening set designed by Leon Martel '55 provides a striking backdrop for the 115-foot ice pond on which the show will be presented. Skating in this year's show is Hayes Jenkins, world amateur figure-skating champion, who is on his way to Europe to defend his title in the world championships February 15. As in the past, the show promises to be a spectacular array of skaters and skiers, with a grand fireworks finale.
On Fraternity Row imagination runs rampant as the houses knock themselves out to cop the snow sculpture cup. In front of the dorms the freshmen are learning just how cold a Hanover winter can be as they put the finishing slushes on the dorm statues. In the dorms and houses the female visitors are trying their darndest to look feminine in spite of frustratingly baggy ski pants and sweaters . . . for the Carnival Queen is yet to be chosen.
Within Robinson Hall the different departments try to fight through the screaming hordes of competitors, officials and just plain tourists. The ticket boys do a lastminute selling job, trying to talk unwary couples into sitting on the ice covered slopes of the Vale of Tempe to watch the jump. The members of the personnel department are busy totaling up the number of hours worked by each student as hordes of undergraduates who have put in 10 to 20 hours of statue construction clamor simultaneously for their tickets.
Similarly, within the higher echelons all is activity. John Rand's office looks like Grand Central station on Christmas Eve as bewildered freshmen or harassed Carnival directors run to him for information they "just can't seem to get anywhere else." Ross McKenney is probably the calmest person in Hanover as he watches the mad rush with amusement from his easy chair in the corner of 21 Robinson. Ski coach Walt Prager has his nose glued to the window as he eyes the sky in hopes of a few more inches of snow to cover up the ice on Suicide Six. Three dates garbed in the green and white Dartmouth scarves wander through the Outing Club office in search of their errant dates, and the pieces of the 1955 Winter Carnival are ready to fall into place.
The clanging bells, the crunch of feet on snow"
