Cynthia Elder, local historian, photographer and editor of “the Catholic settlement” A History of St. Jerome Catholic Church 1836-2011, introduced the Church and the largest Picnic in the world (1984 Guinness Book of World Records) in her hometown Fancy Farm, KY to a Bowling Green and Warren County audience in Barnes & Noble on the evening of October 9, 2014. Her talk was part of the WKU Libraries’ “Kentucky Live!” speaker series.
Photo Album | Sound File | Podcast RSS
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They were some of the rising young men of Bowling Green, the twenty-something sons of bankers, lawyers and merchants. About 1883, some of these society swells decided to launch a journalistic venture “in the interest of the vast number of dudes of our city.” The product, the Park City “Dude” (Bowling Green, Ky.: Dude Publishing Co.), sought to entertain its readers with humor, anecdotes and parody, the chief objects of which were the “dudes” themselves.
Promising regular biographical sketches of the members of its circle, the Dude first profiled Jim Roberts, a native (we are told) of Hong Kong, an escapee from P.T. Barnum’s circus and currently a “knight of the yardstick” at a local clothing establishment. Next we hear of Solomon “Sol” Cain, a “genial, affable, whole-souled and industrious” young entrepreneur who, having contracted to furnish city businesses with hash and sausages, was in search of “500 fat dogs and 1,000 cats.” The Dude generously offered advertising space at the rate of 75 cents per inch, but directed all complaints to its Grievance Committee, open “from midnight until daybreak.”
The Park City “Dude” can be found in the Lissauer Collection, part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections. For more, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.
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We have been processing and posting meeting minutes of all kinds. There are University Senate minutes, Congress Debating Club minutes, departmental faculty meeting minutes, Stickles History Club minute books and FCG Classical Club to name a few.
WKU minute takers have done a great job in relaying accurate information to us. They have also found and recorded humor in their meetings. Here are a few examples:
Congress Debating Club, Book 4, page 279
Senator Searcy blew his breath at the crowd and at the same time his vocal chords vibrated in an unintelligble manner.
On page 290 of the same book we find a notation that the previous minutes are an “unhealthy bit of propaganda.”
In a memo addressed to the History faculty April 29, 1977, Dr. Richard Troutman outlines a number of meetings as:
The first meeting will involve consideration of two proposals from the Departmental Curriculum Committee . . .
The meeting following the first meeting should be brief and will involve a continuation of our discussion on graduate assistants.
The meeting following the brief meeting which follows the longer meeting will concern my concern about what direction the Department should take as we seek a new teacher for next year. This meeting should take longer than the brief second meeting, but perhaps not as long as the longer first meeting. But then again, it may take longer.
History faculty meeting minutes have begun “Once upon a time” and ended “. . . and they all lived happily ever after.”
A belated but slight reminder of things past . . . !
As quickly as was humanly possible, Dr. Crowe adjourned the meeting. Deferentially yielded, crowe the younger
The Sept. 19, 1974 meeting minutes open: “This is the Way it Was . . . !” and conclude with:
If there are any questions as to particulars mentioned in this monsterpiece, check with the man who keeps a pad in his shirt pocket. His note-taking ability far surpasses anything done by ‘little old me, honey.’
Stickles History Club
[signed] Scarlott O’Crowe
This image from the Arndt Stickles History Club Minute Book 1, page 4 relates the seriousness of manner in which the members organized:
In ancient days students sat at the feet of the old philosophers or followed them about through gardens, in order to get the gleam of life that scholars of the age had or to hear marvelous stories of the universe, or perhaps, just to be near great and noble characters. Even so, do students of the modern age long for contact with just such noble men as those of old.
These and many more records are available for researchers in WKU Archives.
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