Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1909 — Class Day Program Was Pleasing to Large Audience. [ARTICLE]

Class Day Program Was Pleasing to Large Audience.

The opera house was crowded Tuesday night to witness the class day exercises, and the large audience was more than pleased with the program. Following a piano duet by Misses Edna Hauter and Madeline Ramp, Ralph Hammond read the class prophecy, which was humorously prepared in rhyme and contained many take-offs on the members of the class. This was followed by an altogether new feature in class day exercises, entitled “Side Lights on Class History.” Very few knew what was coming and were surprised to see magic lantern pictures on the canvas at the rear of the stage, and each picture bearing resemblance to some one of the gradluates and containing some joke or pun at the expense of the graduate. Some of the witticisms were very laughable and there was a sigh of regret when they were completed. The pictures and puns were the production of Lonzo Healy and Ethel Jacks, two of the graduates. Next came the presentation of the class play, “The Frail Co-Ed.” The scene was laid on a college campus, and the plot concerned the effort of Noodles Welch (Ralph Hammond) to procure a legacy of $500,000, which he was to receive whenever he complied with the terms of a will that required him to marry a female graduate of that particular college. The school was not a co-educational one, iand it looked like Noodles would lose the legacy, but with genuine American thrift he decided to have some girl enter the school, hasten through the course, marry him, and thus enable him to get the money. He selected Agnes Wisenglass, daughter of a washerwoman at Monticello, and brought her to school with the avowed intention of getting her through the four years’ course in twelve months. The boys of the school were “dead sore” on the co-ed proposition and joined in a plot with the town girls to capture Noodles and Agnes and give them a ducking in the river. Agnes was played by Roy Gundy, who was made up with a wealth of red hair and played the part very nicely. About the time that the arrangements for the ducking were taking form Miss Eloise Dazzle appeared on the college campus and ran across Noodles the first thing. She confided in him that she had taken a correspondence course in the college and had now come to get her diploma. Noodles saw a chance to get the money without delay and made an instanter proposal to Eloise, who was none other than Walter English, attractively attired in femenine garments Eloise became an easy victim of his pleading, but the plot thickened when Noodles undertook to shake Agnes. She was pacified, however, when Willie Thin (James Jordan), a friend of Noodles, took her in charge and done some real love making on his own account. Noodles opened his heart to his fellow students and told them the reason for his anxiety to graduate some girl through the school. He appeased them by promising the students all a good time at his expense and every one was really college happy and the curtain was rung down as the college boys and town girls were singing a lively chorus, with which the play had been interspersed. Just before the curtain fell Agnes and Eloise coyly raised • the outer skirts and on the lingerie of one was a naught and on the other a figure 9, which of course, meant the class of “’o9.”*. The play was a musical farce with only a few speaking parts but filled with mirth and altogether very pleasing.