It's Not About Me

ever introduced by ISA. Dave Long was instrumental in helping us to create the original test files as he visited various fraternities to get copies of their test files.

We also paid each student 10 cents per page for copies of recent tests so we could add them to our test file library. It was noted by the faculty what we were doing as we raised the average score of the test results in the Zoology department by over 10 points! One time we got hold of a test BEFORE it was given (a student had found a copy in wastepaper basket when the test was being printed) ; we immediately called the professor and alerted him about the problem; he said he was going to give the test anyway, and we said NO…if YOU do, we will call the Dean of Students and report you! He ended up having to REDO his test! • U.T. Pic-A-Pair Computer Dance – ISA was one of the very first organizations in the U.S. to offer students a computer match-making service. We sponsored an annual dance event beginning in February 1965 where students filled out a 64-question form which was then computer processed at UT to match up the students. This event garnered considerable national news coverage both UPI and AP News Services. Matches were posted at the Student Center on the week prior to the dance; men were then responsible to contact their matched dates and ask them to the dance. Today, online dating is now a socially accepted and booming multibillion dollar business than continues to grow. Unfortunately, one year the computer folks were unable to process the matching from the questionnaire and so we directed all the participants (men and women) to just show up at the dance. We ended up just MANUALLY matching folks up when they arrived. Thanks to Dave Long, he had the girls line up on one side of the Gymnasium and the boys line up on the other side…and he just matched them up as they c rossed the room! Despite the computer snafus, everyone seemed to have a good time! • Campus Politics – under the USO banner (United Students Organization), the Independent Students Association (ISA), the International Club, various Dormitory Associations along with a few fraternities and sororities managed to win 56 of 60 Student Government Association (SGA) positions in 1965 with a historic record turnout of independent students on election day. The following year, Phil Moffitt, the President of ISA that followed my term in office, also ran under the USO banner and was elected President of SGA at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. When we started college in the early 1960’s, color TVs were relatively new and almost no one had them. By the mid-1960s a large color TV could be obtained for only $300 - a mere $2,490 in today's money. The median household income in 1966 was $6,882. It's no wonder that color TV was such an exclusive viewing experience. The only dorm on campus that had a color TV was the athletic dorm where the football and basketball players resided! Dave Long was President of Stadium Hall Dorm association and he raised money there for a color TV; likewise, I was President of Old Melrose Hall and we raised money selling Krispy Kreme donuts during exam week to get enough money for a color TV for our dorm as well. UT paid for the antenna and installation! Side Note: Dave Long and Katherine Ward would later marry after graduating from UTK in 1967; I attended their wedding an d later their daughter’s wedding in 2004. Dave attended my first wedding in 1972 and he and Katherine attended my second wedding in 2005.

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