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Other Features: Distinct by Design Who Would Have Predicted This? Theater on a Shoestring Sunny-side Up This is Your Life Toss Out the Catalog Visit the Web site! A new window will open on your computer's web browser. Bicentennial Book Photo Gallery Anthony Webb, BSC '76, submitted this photograph of friends gathered at the Civil War monument. Springfest was a highlight of the year for many students in the 1970s and '80s. Arthur Baumann, who attended Ohio University in the late 1930s and early '40s is shown in this photo with Anne Ross near White's Mill.

Commemorative book will make the most of your memories By Corinne Colbert When I was an Ohio University undergraduate in the 1980s, Springfest was the highlight of spring quarter. Playing Frisbee, wading in the Hocking, listening to rock 'n' roll under the hot May sun - college life didn't get much better than that. But when I returned to Athens just two years after graduation to pursue a master's degree, things had changed. Familiar landmarks such as Woolworth's and Hangar 5 were gone. The Baker Center beer garden was a coffeehouse. And Springfest was dead, the victim of a financial fix. Memories like mine can live on in the "Ohio University Bicentennial Book, 1804-2004," an attempt to preserve the University's history as seen through the eyes of the people who have lived it. A mix of personal reminiscences and documentary materials, the book will include students' letters home, personal essays, program histories, photos, illustrations and much, much more. The task of sifting through two centuries of mementos is being tackled by Betty Hollow. An administrator on campus since 1968, Hollow has enlisted the counsel of campus archivists, staff from the alumni and communications areas, student organizations, faculty and others. "Betty has a good grasp of the way the University has developed over the years," says David Sanders, director of Ohio University Press, which will publish the book. "She embodies the components of a good editor: She is diplomatic, organized and resourceful." And despite her intimate knowledge of campus, Hollow says the project has been an education. "I'm surprised by how little I knew about Athens and the University," she says. "Every now and then I get something that really gives a sense of what was happening at a particular time." One example is a letter from Anthony Webb, BSC '76, of Philadelphia, who enclosed a photo he took of friends at the Civil War monument on the College Green. African-American students gathered there daily to swap stories and information. "It was just the place to be to find out what was happening," Webb recalls. "Now when we go back for reunions, that's one of the places we have to go." Hollow's office is filling with memories such as Webb's. There's the taped interview of a 103-year-old Gallipolis woman, Class of 1920, who was among the first women to complete a science curriculum. Scrapbooks dating from 1914 through the 1960s. Commemorative plates from the University's 1954 sesquicentennial. And poignant stories of campus life during World War II as male students signed up to serve. Among them was Arthur Baumann of Cincinnati, who came to Ohio University in 1938 to study engineering. The lone dormitory for men was full, so Baumann lived off campus. His sophomore year, he shared a house with three friends. Their diet, he recalls, included a staple familiar to students of many generations: macaroni. He remembers good times, too, especially playing his E-flat clarinet in a Sousa Memorial Concert at Memorial Auditorium in April 1941. Less than a year later, though, Baumann and his housemates had abandoned their studies for the war. Of the four, only Baumann and one other survived. He came back to Athens to complete his senior year but found the memories too difficult. "Everybody I knew was gone, and everybody else seemed so much younger," he says. He left and eventually earned an engineering degree at the University of Cincinnati. Hollow points out common notes that ring throughout the University's history. "Things that are of concern now were of concern from the beginning," she says, citing state funding, town-gown relations and student conduct as examples. And while some stories immediately stand out as book material, Hollow says it will be hard to make final choices about what to include. She doesn't have much time, either. The book is to be completed in time for the University's bicentennial in 2004. Items considered for inclusion must be submitted by the end of 2001 so that a finished manuscript can be ready for Ohio University Press by mid-2002. Corinne Colbert, BSJ '87 and MA '93, is a freelance writer living in Amesville, Ohio.