First ASU graduating class to celebrate 50-year reunion
By Roy Ockert Jr.
College reunions don’t seem to attract the same amount of interest that high school reunions do. That seems odd because we tend to form more long-lasting relationships in college while adding some important lines to our resumes.
That’s my experience anyway as I look forward to this weekend’s 50-year reunion of the Arkansas State University Class of 1967. At last report only about 20 members of the class, which numbered more than 500, had signed up to attend a luncheon program on Friday — plus about 50 guests.
Compare that to the 50-year reunion of my Hot Springs High School class, which was attended by about 100 class members, plus about 75 guests. We graduated about 290 in 1963. Maybe it’s just more interesting to see how much your old high school classmates have aged.
A little later in 1963 I entered Arkansas State College on a $500 scholarship, one of four given to HSHS graduates that year as part of an effort to broaden the college’s reach. Not only did that money cover most of my first-year expenses, the strategy worked well; by the time I graduated in 1967, more than two dozen Hot Springs High grads were in school here.
As it turned out, the Class of 1967 enjoyed a special distinction: We were the first Arkansas State University graduating class.
That was really no credit to us. After all, none of us attended a single class at Arkansas State University.
University status came after several years of academic and political maneuvering by President Carl R. Reng, a small group of influential staff members that included Dr. Eugene Smith, Ray Hall Sr. and Ralph Waddell, and several Northeast Arkansas legislators.
That followed an attempt in 1959, when a powerful lobbying effort by University of Arkansas forces twice defeated a university status bill in the House of Representatives.
Every A-State alumnus, patron, administrator and faculty member should read “The ASU Story” by former history professor Lee A. Dew. Published while the history was fresh in 1968, it chronicles the growth of the college into a university campus and is especially revealing about a magnificent victory emerged from the ashes of defeat in just four years.
Members of the Class of 1967, as well as those who came after us, were beneficiaries of that victory. We didn’t really do much, other than watch it unfold and then celebrate. The heavy lifting was done by others who believed in the cause and worked for it.
The 1966-67 push encountered the same opposition, including the UofA, the Arkansas Gazette and the Commission for Coordination of Higher Education. The arguments were the same: the college isn’t ready to be a university; there isn’t enough money; more study is needed; it would weaken other institutions.
This time, though, the votes had been secured and nothing could stop the ASU bill, which was comprised of only five sentences, including the title. Not only did A-State students benefit, but also those at other state colleges, both public and private. The dam having been breached once, more university bills spilled through.
That victory gave us the hard-fought right to the acronym ASU, one that later university administrators have tried to “rebrand” out of existence in favor of A-State. Faculty and staff were urged in 2013 not to use ASU or ASUJ, but rather to call the institution A-State or indeed the cutesy but grammatically incorrect stAte.
Even the ASU Alumni Association has been rebranded as the “Arkansas State Alumni Association,” leaving the university out entirely.
That’s an insult to our roots, a time when we avoided using ASC but rather called the college A-State until that glorious day when we earned the right to be ASU. And to those of us who remember, it will always be ASU — regardless of what you get when you “Google” it.
For next year’s 50-year reunion the Class of 1968 may claim to have been the first true ASU graduates. After all, they did attend ASU classes for at least a semester.
Those of us who have diplomas of 1967 vintage, though, can claim the first bearing the phrase “Arkansas State University has conferred upon ...,” along with a brand new Arkansas State University seal.
Giving us this distinction required an administrative decision that surely came from the president’s office.
The ASU bill did not take effect until June 1, 1967, and our commencement was on May 31. The program, by the way, had an Arkansas State College seal on the front, and the word “university” was not used anywhere within its eight pages. But our diplomas were dated July 1 so, in effect, Dr. Reng gave us a pre-dated check.
What’s the real significance of the ASU Class of 1967? To answer completely, that would take a lot more information, time and space than I havee.
But a scan of the 485 names on the Alumni Association’s list of our class members shows a large number of people I can identify as present and past leaders of community and state, military, politics, education, business and industry.
Of those, 47 now live in Jonesboro and another 15 in Paragould. Of the 251 who live in Arkansas, 136 have addresses in Northeast Arkansas.
It’s safe to say the college-turned-university served us well, and vice versa.
Roy Ockert, a resident of Jonesboro, is a retired editor of The Jonesboro Sun. He can be reached at royo@suddenlink.net.