interview here at A. S. U. Or the Arizona State University retirees
Association. I'm pam Stevenson and today is monday november the 24th Of
2003 and I'll let you introduce yourself and give us your name and tell us
what was your position at MSU when you retired I was full professor of
health and Physical education and your your name, my name is Anne Pittman
and uh I taught in the physical education department. Let's go back a
little bit and get just some background about your beginnings like when
you were born and where you were born, I was born in Camp Hill Alabama,
the best little town in east Alabama. It says under the sign and October
20, 2019 1918. So I'm over 39.
Um
I moved to texas for the last couple of years of high school and
then I went to University of texas for my bachelor's degree. Tell me about
your family. This is a large family. Ah there were three Children, 2 boys
and I was a girl. The two boys are older than I and my dad was a traveling
salesman. They call them marketing people now but he
traveled quite a lot. My mom was when she was younger was a milliner in
Montgomery Nachman Mercedes which was a uh famous department store at that
time. That's where they met. Um Then we settled in Camp Hill, they settled
in Camp Hill and that's where the three Children were born. What took you
to texas. Um Well my father had passed away and I had an aunt living in
texas and her husband had passed away. So my mother wanted to move out and
be with her. So that's one reason. The other reason is my older brother
had already gone out and had gotten a job with Sun Oil Company in texas in
Beaumont texas. And so we moved out and I spent the last two years of high
school there in beaumont texas.
Tell me about in high school where you're a good student. Uh yes, I was
captain of the Royal Guard, which was pep. Pep squads were very popular in
those days, especially around texas. They marched at football games and,
and um wore costumes of the colors of the school played a lot of tennis
and competed in tennis in high school. And I, I enjoyed high school, had
good teachers and I, mm hmm. I don't think I made always, but I made B's
and A's mostly and um made, made good enough classic background to qualify
for for college. We took latin in those days in high school. So we took
some subjects that high schools don't even know about these days had
literature, chemistry, latin. Um,
I took one did did take a course in bookkeeping. I don't know why, but I
did, but all the teachers that I had in high school, especially texas were
excellent. And um, so going to school was fun and games and
enjoy it. And so when you went on to college, what were you going to major
in? Did you have any plans what you wanted to do? Um Actually I went to
Lamar Junior College which is in Beaumont the first year and I majored in
Prelaw because I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and then when I transfer
the University of texas in Austin
I'm the kind of person who likes to be out of doors and not indoors a lot.
So I changed the physical education and so the three years I was in
University of texas was for a bachelor's degree and in physical education.
Pretty big change. Yeah.
Actually people I think don't understand that if you're in physical
education it isn't all activity. The background you take is basically a
liberal arts and so we take everything everybody else takes plus core
subjects in whatever you major in. And in those days it was highly
scientific. I had courses in Anatomy and physiology from okay two very
famous teaches it in that particular area at the university of texas. A
matter of fact I was so good at Anatomy and physiology that they invited
me to do um assistant teaching in the summer time in the lab courses in
the biology department. But I didn't do it because I already had a job
with the Austin recreation department on and the parks and recreation
division and so I worked on the playgrounds in the summertime for extra
cash and keep me busy, what were you planning to do when you got out of
college?
I knew I wanted to be a teacher was, there's no doubt about that. I guess
it's you know you want to be a teacher when you boss people around a lot
or give directions or act no, it all about about things. But you decided
that you wanted to teach in physical education? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
Okay. What was your first job when you got out of school? I taught
elementary school, physical education and science at robert e lee
elementary school in austin texas was the first first job I had and that
was that was a lot of fun. It was a new school and the playgrounds were
mostly dirt and rock. And I remember 1, 1 kind of funny incident, I had
The first grade, there were 55 youngsters in the first grade and they came
to school and little pinafores and all dressed up starched and just nique.
So I had them out on the playground playing brownies and fairies and
that's on that playground that was pretty rugged for him. And they looked
like they'd been in a bad mitten match when we got through. But there was
a lady standing under a tree near where we were playing and when I got in
she came up and introduced herself, she was my supervisor from the main
office and she said did you know there was poison ivy under that tree over
there because I had asked a youngster who said she was tired to go sit
under the tree and rest while we finished playing. And evidently she sat
on poison ivy. I didn't even know it was there. So you learned something
that day. So how long did you teach there? Just one year And then I'm
took a job with the Y. M. Y. W. C. A. In ST louis and taught in ST louis
for
at the Y. I taught swimming and gymnastics and will exercise classes and
fencing and whatever else they need first aid. And
um I was there a couple of years and then I met the department of Pe
department chairman at Washington University and she invited me to come
and teach there. So I left the Y. W. C. A. And went over to Washington
University and taught there for a couple of years while I was there. I um
this was sort of it at the beginning of World War two and while I was
there ah I started taking flying lessons and ended up with a pilot's
license because I thought maybe I'd like to get in the
the Army Air Force had a ferry pilots a group of women who Ferried planes
around for the for the Air Force in Sweetwater texas. And so I was going
to apply for that. So I got my pilot's license and I applied for it and I
was supposed to go in the I think july
first
1940 for things. Classic suite sweetwater texas where they trained trained
you to ferry pilot book. They canceled the class because there was no the
women were just doing the ferry work. There was no security whatsoever
insurance or they weren't really connected with the government. So if they
got killed or something happened to them when they had no resources,
Jackie Cochran was head of the the pilots group. So I didn't actually get
to to do that because of them canceling the class I was supposed to go in.
So I went on to
new york university to get my masters degree. So I went from there from
Washington University up to over to new york to
get my master's degree And the department with a pretty famous person at
that time. JB nash who was quite well known in the area of recreation and
physical education.
So you weren't able to become a ferry pilot. No. No. And I would have
loved to.
So when you got your masters degree then what did you do? I went back and
taught at the university of texas and um
uh Anna, his whose sister of Alger hiss was chairman of that department.
And I'm I'm sure more than quite a few people know who Alger was because
he was Mhm well publicized in the media over the years. But Anna was in
charge of the department and I had gone to school there and so they knew I
was etcetera. So it was not too hard to go back and teach there.
So how long were you there? I was there from
ah
40.
These numbers are not absolutely correct but whose, whose nobody's sitting
around here to check me on them. Um Maybe 46 : 51. And
yeah, that's then I I taught after that I filled in for a person who was
on sabbatical that what is now University of Northern colorado, greeley
colorado filled in a year there. And then um
after that I got in skiing and all the fun things you do in northern
colorado during that time. Then after that I am came to the p convention
which was in L. A. And I drove through Tempe Arizona and there were a
couple of people on the staff here that I had known in texas and one was
Mary Palace and there was one of the early men's golf tournaments going on
over over Arizona country club boy. The smell of orange blossoms in april
and and golf made it rather easy for me too, decided that this was a
pretty nice place. But I met Naina Murphy at the convention, she was
chairman of the department here at the issue and asked if she needed some
help and she said yes, so that's the contact to come here And I came here
in 19 1952 when you first came here. What was your first position? Um,
instructor And what did you teach? Well, you teach a little bit of
everything. I taught tennis and dance and golf and whatever, you know, was
needed. And a couple of the methods courses and
teaching methods courses. But I've taught tennis from, I didn't teach
tennis the first year I was here, but I did beginning in second year I was
here and Nina was quite,
it was well known for believing that women should have the opportunity to
to compete. So I was really in my media when I met her because that's what
I thought too. And so we took off from there and since there was no
organized competition for women um, except play days, which were just kind
of fun things. Um, I am started forming a tennis team and if you have a
team and they practice, you've got to have somebody to compete with. So
the next step was to find competition which took up the rest of my life.
So was tennis the main thing that you taught here? Well, it wasn't
actually the main thing. You teach a full schedule and tennis classes too.
And I always taught all, even the competitive tennis that I taught was a
class called advanced tennis because I didn't get paid within none of the
women got paid for any of the sports that they, they sponsored
competitively. Um, so you got paid by the hours on your schedule.
So that was the way we got paid mm the men got money, we didn't
um tell me a little bit what was the issue in the athletic department like
when you came here was actually part of the athletic department or
women's p. Was in um liberal arts college of liberal arts. No, no no. Um
We had six tennis courts done by Arizona concrete rock company over where
greater damages. South Park parking lot is now and they were the fastest
tennis courts in the whole wide world. And uh so we started there and
because I've been in texas and I had played tennis in texas, a lot of the
texas people knew that I that we gave scholarships and we gave activity
scholarships like the band gave or chemistry department cave anybody gave
, they were not athletic scholarships and but people heard that a good
tennis player could come here and get some help with their tuition and
fees. So I started getting some really nice young tennis players from down
texas way, which meant I had to step up my energies that creating some
kind of competitive program. We're kind of fortunate because it was
Arizona open Arizona close tournaments run by tennis people here. And then
there was the Southwest
Tennis Association. So I use those tournaments as competitive basis for um
for these people to play in. And we we did rather well,
how large was the department of that time um in numbers, I'm not quite
sure, but there were a c
They're about 10 faculty people in the department. So Uh huh. The dance
department was quite active and uh because of majors, majors in physical
education for women were generated by that department. And the men's PE
majors were under the guise of the men's PE department. Rudy Leveque was
um head of the men's PE program and Naina Murphy was ahead of our
shenanigans over there. So
that's a bit, it was a busy busy department. Mhm.
What was a s you like at that time? Well, 14th Street was a muddy quagmire
of mud And there were cotton fields or whatever they're raised from 14th
Street. Always south to tooth on I think. But and where we are right now,
a little bit to the west of here was some tPS, it looked like indian tPS.
It was a tourist court. And then beyond that was a little grocery store
and some little tourist cabins
beyond that down to Mcallister
and Goodwin Stadium was on the corner of college and it's and it was on
the corner of McDowell is that it didn't go all the way up to ah college
but it was there the second set of tennis courts that they built for us
was because they started damage project quite early and we had they had to
dig up those tennis courts. So they built tennis courts on the east side
of Goodwin Stadium for the next step that I used for classes and for
competition and bobby winkles had a baseball, his baseball field was right
back of the tennis courts and they used to yell when they hit a fly ball
over there, they yelled heads up on the tennis court. And incidentally
when he was here being honored down at the baseball stadium, what he
remembered that and when I saw him laughed over the number of times we had
to grab our head because the guys were knocking balls over on the tennis
court.
But I think there were about 4500 students when I came. Did you settle
here in Tempe or? Well, I thought for a while I wasn't gonna settle here
because I looked around looking for a place to stay. And every time they
opened the door to show me the house, a great burst of hot air would come
out and you would sort of, you know, shrink. So I finally told nana Murphy
, I said, I can't find a place to live, I'm gonna have to go back to texas.
So she talked to Kimber Goodwin And he had a house down on 5th Street On
6th Street is to be exact. And Mary Bunty the Grady Gammage is secretary
lived upstairs and there was a part two apartments downstairs and nobody
was in one of them. So she talked him into letting us move in there. So,
um, that's settled a housing problem until um,
Del Webb decided to build campus homes and then we bought over there.
Um, what stands out to to you about to tell us a little about the growth
of your career here. You obviously did decide to stay? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
How did your career progress? Well, I sort of grew along with the school
, I guess you'd say I um I went to stanford and got my doctor's degree and
of course that helps with promotion. Uh whatever. I had already written
one dance book and so I was involved in writing several editions while I
was here of that, which was kind of fun to do. And I was involved in, we
had a square dance club, which I ran devils and games. And in addition to
the tennis, as I told you before, I taught dance to and uh square dance
was kind of a big thing in the valley when I first came here. So that was
a lot of fun too. Meet and call for various groups around the valley and I
was a fairly good caller and that gave me a lot of resources for the
writing of the book, which included folks square social and then novelty
dancing and dances. And as I say, while I was still
busy with everything else. Um, I got my doctor's degree from stanford
University,
so that took a care of a lot of summers too.
I did, I did a study of, I did my research on the san Carlos indian
reservation, working with teenagers and instrumental activity study which
was the basis for my research. What what does that mean? What's
instrumental activity? Well it's um a list of activities that the group
does and what those activities mean to them and what outcomes they ah get
from doing them and what involvement in them mean to them and you get some
idea of their life goals, what they want to do, what their ambitions are
to make it simple life goals is a word that we used but it's easy to say
there interests and what they plan to do with their lives. How did you get
involved with doing that on the indian reservation? Um
While I was at stanford I worked with the education department, there was
very good about letting you do wild things. So I worked with George and
Louise Spindler who were anthropologist and I got interested in studying
american indians
from some of their work that I knew about and read about. And actually I
think what really made me decide actually to do, it was once I checked
book out of the library at stanford called
Games of North american indians, it was a very thick book. And when I
opened it, the last the card in, it Is that the last time it had been
checked out was 1924.
So
this was this was in the this was in the the 50s and early 60s. And um I
was interested in the games and one of the ones that I was interested in
that I wanted to find out a little about the reason I checked the book out
was let me sticks, it's a game in which you bounce sticks together and
then pass them around the circle of people and they're called dice. And
I'm an american Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls and I guess they teach them
in school. I taught enough people how to play it. So I hope they're
teaching it in school. It was a lot of fun. Um, so I was looking into the
background of that game and then I just decided that I would do something
in the area of indian games. And then um,
I went down to the reservation and I remember when I got out of the car I
looked around and I thought boy not too many people in the state of
Arizona know all this exists down here. You know, not, not very many
people even go there, they just pass up and down the highway or just know
it's there. And um I met uh a couple of people on the reservation who were
, who one of them became my interpreter sort of, they speak english, but
you need somebody to two contact the young people that I wanted to
interview because I was doing with teenagers.
So that's pretty much the story of that. But I drove up and down the road
from here to globe to san Carlos many times over. It took about three
years. It's you doing what you call, they call a field study but stand for
people or they like for you to do stuff like that and they don't call you
up and say you better hurry up and do this or do that or do the other
thing. And um,
so they didn't push me so to speak, but they were very cooperative. And so
that was your doctoral thesis. That was it. Did you ever follow up on that
later and do more with native americans? Well actually I got a telephone
call, we had put a telephone on the tennis courts, which was kind of
unusual. But we had a couple of accidents on the intramural field near the
tennis courts and there was no way to get help. So finally the university
put a telephone out there and I got a call one day and the voice said, I
think we played night ball
tonight and I almost fainted because I was interested in night ball also.
So sure enough I jumped in the car and took a couple of people with me and
went down to the reservation and night ball is um very important game. Um
, and I saw, I saw sent uh Apache indians that I never had seen in the
agency um area. That's what they call this little town agency. Um Big
western dressed strong ranch type people that lived off the reservation.
And um, they played night ball, which is composed of two teams and they
dig a pit in the ground and it's full of sand and they have a ball that
they make out of the root of Saguaro and one team holds a blanket up in
front of it so they can't see. And the other team comes over and they mark
across in the sand and then they bury the ball in the sand someplace and
the other team is supposed to come over and they take a stick and
Stab it in the quiet one of the four quadrants and if they hit the right
quadrant, um, they win the prize and the prize is the world like saddles
and guns and all kinds of fairly expensive um, ranch type, country western
stuff. And there was, there was a lot of teasing and, and competition
between the two sides and I had a tape in my purse and so I was crawling
around taping all the sounds and, and so on. Still have the tape. And so
that was pretty exciting because they hadn't played night ball on that
reservation. The last time I played was 1938 they told me. And um, partly
because I asked about it, I think a lot while I was there that sort of
stimulated their ideas and it kind of depends on the older members of the
tribe remembering how to do it. And so it was good that they did it
because that taught some of the new younger a patch is how to do it.
I hope I'm not boring. You getting back to your career on campus? That's
kind of diverting up. It's interesting um, you know, are there any things
that stand out in your memory of some special events and during your
career on campus sort of things? But well, I remember when Grady Gammage
stood upon the union um porch and pronounced as a university that was uh
gala affair, everybody cheered and we're glad to get out of being Arizona
State College, which it was when I first came here and then um, we won
three national tennis titles while I was here, uh 71 and 72, we won um,
back to back nationals with the same people And then we went again in 74
and of course then, because I was pretty well known in the tennis circles
, we had a couple of three national tournaments held here on, on campus
after they built white man Kenneth center. Most of that took place, that's
sort of, the university is concerned. Generally speaking,
I guess it's a damage thing. It's about
the biggest event that I can remember. Of course, a lot of, a lot of
events, like building a swimming pool was a big event, you know, because
we didn't have a swimming pool. I never could understand why Arizona state
it wasn't a swimming place with all the heat and stuff but it just never
was. But it we finally got the first pool which is now non existent and
mona plummer. Um The pool is taking place of that
next question. Um Let's see.
We'll talk about the growth of your department and you know as things.
Well it um
it grew well enough to cause um the building of the new gym which was
built on the Clyde smith's um Clyde smith was head of
athletics and
The two departments sort of came together. I don't remember specifically
the year but the men and women's groups filing became one. So we had
faculty of men and the faculty of women and that became the athletic
department. No no no it wasn't. Physical education, physical education.
Clyde smith was head of included athletics but he was chairman of of the
P. E. Departments and he had he had people in men and women's P. Separate
. I served as chairman of women's pe for a while after nine he retired and
we built a new women's gym when Homer Durham was here because he was here
when we had the the
opening of that building and um that was quite a a nice affair. And
Naina Murphy was quite a
quite a person and working for her was a real and good thing for me and
tell me a little bit about what was she like
um As I said in the beginning, she okayed women's competition. And
I used to when we go away and win trophies, I used to put them on her desk
and she took great pride in in those things. But she was very um a modest
person actually for a person she did one famous thing which probably is
not not a famous item to many people, but the infield fly rule in softball.
And I think in baseball was one of the her contributions to competitive
sports because there was no such rule until she
did whatever she had to do to get him to put in to make it an instrumental
thing in in softball and in in baseball. Softball also was a very big
thing when I first came here because the valley they had big softball
games, women's softball was very big and they were amateur. They had a
stadium over off of Van Buren that was very popular. Rosemont played
softball. That's right. She was a big booster of that. And so was Naina
and um a lot of them softball people came over and um two p from nine. But
yeah that department grew from, we were in more activity building for many
years. And then when they built the new gym which is um west of what the
bookstore now um
that was quite a move. And then of course the department grew into what
what the professionals called exercise science and became really more
science oriented and research oriented. Where exercise and its effects on
the human body were big items and became less of a activity oriented
teaching of skills in dance and sports lesson to a degree. And but we had
Margaret clan was nationally known in archery competition And uh
Dorothy Galindez was quite well known in dance. And then Margaret Gizmo
came along and um,
we were instrumental out of our department to form the dance department
that's now in fine arts. So that grew out of Margaret's work and out of
our department. And um, then the mona Plummer was
very good in swimming and she won a lot of of national awards in swimming.
So I'd say five or 6 of the women in that department made the national
scene
Before. Competition for women was a big thing before. Title nine. Really
got gave us an extra boost. We were busy doing competition here in Arizona
state.
Yeah. So you saw a lot of changes. It sounds like from your department
when you came being dance and Dennis and things like that. Yeah, it was
pretty activity oriented. Plus the major courses that we talked to for the
teachers methods courses. Yeah, it uh, moved along along with all the
healthy competition that we could drum up. So you mentioned the teachers
courses, you were teaching teachers how to teach this method. There are
methods courses. Yeah. Right. Methods of teaching. Right, mm hmm, mm hmm.
And of course they took physiology and anatomy and kinesiology and and um
, all the science courses that go along with this sort of thing. So run
through your career again for me as you came in and moved up to stay for a
while. You were the head of the department after? Yeah, I was when we
moved into the new building, nine had retired and I became chairman for mm
mm 56 years. And then, um, then they brought in another person from the
outside to be chairman. Uh, that's fine with me. I was busy. You didn't
really want to be here. Well, you know, it's kind of hard to do all I was
doing because at one point, um, we didn't have money to pay coaches and at
one point the golf group, I didn't have anybody
as a coach. So I doubled in golf and tennis. And until we could find
somebody, you know, to take a teaching in the department position and
coach to the gulf. So you were a teacher and a coach. And as I said before
, the coaching was all free. No pay for that at all. Why do people want to
do that well? Because like me, they thought women ought to have the
opportunity to to use their skills in competition and by joy if we didn't
do something about it, it wouldn't happen. And we had quite a few good
golfers. And when you said it wasn't the same for the men, the men coaches
were paid, right? Men coaches got paid. Yeah,
well I I know you can't believe it, but um it's so because our teaching
load was our pay and
all right interest in being a coach was was covered in my case by teaching
, by the credit I got for advanced class and that was pretty much what
they did for archery and for golf and for swimming and as part of the
teaching load, that was just what you did. Mhm. And it was fortunate that
we had some people who wanted to do it because
we didn't have to start from scratch when fred miller became when card
smith left in Ecclesiastes and chairman of our department fred miller came
in and he
he went around, gave everybody a choice of either teaching and doing what
we, the way we've done it are becoming a paid coach and some of the people
um
did that, I didn't how come? Well I wanted to be a professor, I was a
professor and I didn't want to give all that up and no, what year was that
? I knew you were gonna ask me and I don't know exactly, it would be
In the Middle 70's And when did title nine get past?
He would just celebrating something um
title nine Would be in like 79, 80
era, The last part of the 70s and early 80s,
so was that sort of the corresponding changes that were coming before it
was, it was In response, I think to title nine was in response to the fact
that um,
quite a few people across the country were really interested in seeing
that the women got a fair shake in athletics. So some of the national, uh
, groups like the National Organization for Physical Education had some
subdivisions like girls and women's sports division, for instance, which
began to generate pressure on the government to pass laws making it
possible for sports to be um, girls to have this opportunity in sports and
, and really to make schools give them the opportunity to do it. And it
sounds like that's right around the time of the equal rights amendment. So
when that didn't pass then they did timeline instead or did it. So they
said they didn't need the equal license, whatever. I don't know all of the
background of, I mean all the pressures that were generated, but we were
talking about it for a long, long time and trying to generate some kind of
response from, and literally the, the american Association of Health,
physical Education and Recreation and dance through that organization?
Some of the subdivisions, like I mentioned division of women's girls and
women's sports. Uh, we're big pushes in this area.
So were you involved in pushing for some of that? Yes, I was. Why don't
you tell me about that? Well, um, we pushed it pretty heavily here on
campus and so everybody knew about that our programs here and what they
knew was that we gave scholarships. They thought and as I said before we
gave activity scholarships which were not athletic scholarships. But it
did give us an opportunity to get students that some other schools didn't
have because they had no no recompense for women athletes to come to a
school. What kind of a scholarship tuition and fees only didn't have to do
with boarding room and all the stuff that that and the athletes get that
the men athletes got. And I remember we
we won national titles in golf and in tennis and in swimming. And when I
was chairman I remember writing a note to the president. I won't tell you
who it was saying. You know reminding him that we had all these national
titles that year and he wrote back I know you're just justly proud. It was
kind of how nice that's all he said.
Not much recognition. No he was one that
I didn't care one wit about it and you don't want to name him.
Well I I think he is. I think he's collected his just rewards so I won't
go any further historical
record. I suppose we could look it up. But yeah.
Yeah. Well it wouldn't be nice for me to to to criticize the president of
A. S. U. Well you're just saying that he didn't give you the support that
you would. Well he didn't he wasn't thrilled by what we were doing I think
anything that good recognition to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially if it
didn't cost very much as far as you know national things. Um
I've been on, I've been on all kinds of committees in in the girls and
women's sports division over the years. There's a lot as a lot of pe
people have because that's who we are and um everybody knew what we were
doing here and that I was outspoken where girls and women's activities
were concerned, I felt like that they should have equal rights with the
guys and I made no bones about it and so
some other people joined in and so it came about did you early on
everything that that would happen?
Well we were doing alright with competition. We had formed several
conference groups and inner mountain and had the had University of New
Mexico and Brigham Young and the university of Utah and Arizona we formed
a conference of our own. And so if nationals nationals at the national
level, if nothing happened we were busy doing our thing but of course it
was nice to have um a national tournament and so being on on that
committee helped a lot two.
So mhm.
As your career progresses and how how when did you retire or what would
you? I retired in in 80 86 and discovered it was a life I was really cut
out to leave. Why is that? What are you doing in your retirement? Well, I
discovered I was a pretty good walker away from things. I bet I haven't, I
haven't been back to the white Montana center except for official things
that I was invited to come. I, I only went back to the department one time
and that was christmas time one time because
I was just busy doing what I wanted to do. And um As I say for instance,
we are now working on the 9th edition of our dance book. So in among all
the years I've talked about, we spent a lot of time revising the dance
book and then I pulled out the social dance
in 1995 and published a separate social dance book which is now in its
second printing,
it's been published 2nd edition, two editions of it. And the main dance
book that uh I've been a member of producing Is in its ninth edition. So
that's been running since 1950. So I had all that to do plus I love to
play golf. And then I got to be president of everything in Tempe Arizona
Kendrick golf golf women's group, a issue retiree group. I was in the
group that started the retirement group and they always feel like at least
one woman should be in on the committee. So the the committee that got
together to form um Brent Brown was vice president and he told he was the
one who wanted to get this thing started and I was the woman on the
committee and um we had several nice luncheon meetings and stuff and then
they you had
the
you have a staff president and a faculty president and you have a man
president and a woman president. So because they alternated like that, I
got to be president at one time. So um we wrote it the the fundamental
bylaws so that women got a share of the good work but it was a lot of fun
and the retiree group has grown immensely I think and I'm very happy about
all of it. I haven't participated in a lot of the meetings and so on
because I'm too busy doing other things.
It sounds like you spent a lot of your life though being the woman on the
committee or the I would say so
I'm
happy to to break the the custom of man man man
but we live in a society that is male prone and if somebody doesn't kick
up their heels now and then you know and we could we could improve in a
lot of ways where if you look at the list of any offices in any
organization in a s you guess who gets to be secretary, a woman, guess who
gets far as vice president, a woman for instance of faculty.
Okay faculty association.
I remember one male secretary
is an english department
outside of that, it was always some lady.
So there's been quite a history of that you mentioned several times. This
dance book, Can you tell me what is the dance book?
The dance book is called Dance awhile and it has international folk dance
in it. It has square, dense material in it and it has history of dance. It
has methods of teaching dance. It literally is a methods book for, for
people who are going out and teach and physical education and who may need
need to know how to teach dance. And um, um, we started it when I was at
the University of texas, marla, Swinson Walla and jane Harris Erickson,
The other two authors right now jane isn't active in it anymore. But
Marlys and I still are with Kathie dart, who's at the University of Oregon
in Corvallis, I guess that's Oregon state in Corvallis. And um, it's been
the best selling methods book and dance book over the years. It's out. So
ordinary fiction.
It's pretty amazing. It's over 50 years old and you're doing it, it's 53
plus years old now and we, we didn't, we weren't gonna do anymore, but the
company that has it, Uh, ask us to do, they say it's time to do another
edition. So get busy. Has dance changed a lot over those 50 years danced
like a lot of things is cyclic. For instance, when I pulled out the social
dance because it was a section of that book and made a separate book, I
did it because ballroom dancing where one dances with somebody waltz or
chacha. Uh, old time wall ballroom dance has become popular again and
people are doing a lot of that and they're teaching a lot of it. So I
pulled that out sort of emphasize that square dance used to be extremely
popular and it's kind of disappeared and international folk dances held up
because I think a lot of communities throughout the United States have
still have ethnic groups that are holding on to their ways of doing things.
And for instance, one of my good friends is Nelda
drury inn san Antonio and she's an expert in mexican dance and for
instance, mexican dances very, very, it's held really stable because I
think we have a stable population of, of Hispanic people who appreciate
their songs and their dance. And then um, in ST louis you have a lot of
irish people san Francisco is full of ethnic people and so people of in
the ethnic mode, I shouldn't say. Yeah, I think people, but anyway, um,
it's, it's held pretty stable now. Our book is sold to colleges and
universities who need a text for methods courses and how to teach dance.
So if the curriculum in the physical education department and the
university
kind of wayne's and wafts and changes, then we don't sell too many books,
however, we've lucked out, it's, it's not overall as popular as it was and
um up through
1980
but it's still something that the publishers want to have to sell to their
public. Mm hmm. Of course, you know, xeroxing has caused a lot of trouble
in publishing. Yes, that's getting worse.
Are there any other special memories or anything that you're particularly
proud of and your achievements that you want to talk about?
Well, we I just mentioned this because it just happened. We had a tennis
reunion during homecoming. This past
end of october And over 50 former tennis players came back to celebrate
reunion and we had a marvelous time. And that's
that's a lot of hugs and and stuff, you know, and the university did a
good job of entertaining them and that we all got a little reminder
and I'm kind of proud of the fact that practically every student tennis
player and other students too are so they keep in touch
and it's like a big family. And I think if that can happen, you've done
okay.
Who? That sounds like a good point to kind of wrap things up. Anything
else that you wanted to bring? I think I've bored you stiff already know
things I've never even thought about. I mean dance, who had thought that
there hadbeen