A Book for All Ages

Perhaps you knew that John F. Kennedy was a graduate student at Stanford for one quarter in 1940, lived in a cottage off Mayfield Avenue and enlisted in the Navy while he was on campus. Or maybe you didn’t.

That little tidbit is one of hundreds of vignettes in a new Stanford history book that covers everything from paradigm-shifting innovations to goofball curiosities.

Published by the Stanford Historical Society, A Chronology of Stanford University and Its Founders offers 157 pages of Farm facts arranged decade by decade. It begins with the birth of Leland Stanford in upstate New York in 1824 and concludes with the death of Hewlett-Packard co-founder William Hewlett in January 2001. In between, readers will learn about the attempt by President Donald B. Tresidder in 1945 to have the United Nations located at Stanford; the world’s first computer-dating project, part of a programming course assignment in 1959; and track coach Payton Jordan’s revolutionary method of passing a baton, which helped the Stanford 440-yard relay team set a world record in 1965 and has been imitated ever since.

“The book commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Stanford Historical Society,” says Karen Bartholomew, ’71, one of three co-authors, along with Claude Brinegar, ’50, MS ’51, and Roxanne Nilan, ’92, PhD ’99. “We tried to catch the flavor of each of the University’s decades. The demonstration era of the 1960s and 1970s is covered in extra detail because we wanted to get across what a ‘war zone’ the campus really was. On the other hand, we added occasional lighthearted items such as the computer dating because they reveal the spirit of Stanford.”

The book is on sale at the Stanford Bookstore.

The Family Tree

HE'LL GO FIR: The younger Armstrong is growing into his new role.

Glenn Matsumura

It’s been a good year for the Armstrong family. Chuck Armstrong, JD ’67, president of the Seattle Mariners, watched his club complete one of the best regular seasons in baseball history, winning 116 games. His son, Chuck, a Stanford sophomore, is enjoying his own growing success—as this year’s Tree.

Like many Trees before him, Stanford’s newest arboreal personification approaches the job with a sense of humor, joking that his dad’s experience as a public figure prepared him for life as a pine. “You’d be surprised at the similarities between being the president of a Major League baseball team and being the satirical mascot of a major university,” Chuck quips. “Often, my dad would tell me things like: ‘The key to winning is a consistent and successful pitching staff.’ I always try to keep this in mind when I’m running around in front of the Stanford Band in my Tree costume, dancing like a possessed schizophrenic.”

The younger Chuck reveals, however facetiously, that the Armstrongs have plenty to discuss at family gatherings. “Whenever I come home, we have relentless competitions to see who can tell the best story,” he says, then adds: “The loser doesn’t get to eat that night.”

And what does Dad think about the sapling’s exploits? In March, when he was selected, Chuck told the Seattle Times: “Dad knows I’m a little bit crazier than he is, but deep down, I think he appreciates the craziness and the fun of the Tree. It’s hard to understand the Tree unless you go to Stanford. Sure it’s silly. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be.”

Power to Burn

Compared to some competitors, Stanford’s two entries in the American Solar Car Challenge were a glowing success. Before the race even started, one team’s car exploded into flames. Another’s vehicle collapsed after its suspension snapped.

The 2,300-mile solar car challenge—sponsored biennially by the U.S. Department of Energy—attracted 30 entrants from four countries. Driving cars powered by batteries that draw energy from solar cells, the teams race from Chicago to Los Angeles along the famed Route 66. Stanford was the only school to compete in both the stock and open (in which spending is unlimited) classes, placing second and 16th, respectively. “About what we expected,” says Stanford team leader Joel Segre, ’02, a biomechanical engineering major.

The Third Degree Burner, the stock-class car that resembles something out of the Bat Cave, completed the course in 10 days and 91 driving hours. The open-class entry, the three-wheeled Back Burner, was on the road 100 hours. Average speed: 23 mph.

The two teams employed 20 students as drivers, navigators, planners and maintenance crew. One lead car and one chase car accompanied each race vehicle, and there was a support truck to boot. The lead car navigated the route and warned of obstacles; students in the chase car used computer models and satellite links to track weather, elevation changes and the car’s performance. The support truck broke down in Texas.

“Not only were we the youngest team in the race, but our cars were constructed cheaply,” says Segre. The winning team in the open-class race, University of Michigan, had a solar array rumored to cost $750,000, he says. “The array for the Third Degree Burner cost less than $6,000.”

Sounds like a shining example of efficiency.

An Old Story Comes into Sharper Focus

Forty-eight years after an audacious theft of the Big Game Axe from the Cal campus, two former Stanford medical students have finally identified the culprits. It was them.

Dana Newton and Lee Adams revealed their complicity in May at the 45th reunion for the Medical School Class of ’56, offering all of the pulpy details. After casing the Cal student union during finals week in June 1953, Newton, ’53, MD ’56, and Adams, ’53, MD ’56, broke in one night through a window, sawed through a lock and removed the Axe from its mounting plaque. To demonstrate that they weren’t common vandals, recalls Newton, they left behind a $20 bill to pay for damages.

The theft prompted breathless speculation, indignant Berkeley recriminations and front-page coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Daily Californian. Cal administrators at one point claimed to have fingered a suspect. The Stanford Daily reported that the Axe was hidden at the Fire Truck House. The truth was somewhat less intriguing—it was in Newton’s underwear drawer.

Five months later, Newton and Adams sneaked the Axe, along with a note, into the car of Stanford team captain Norm Manoogian, ’53, MA ’57, on the day of Big Game. “The whereabouts of the Axe over these months will probably never be known because of the remaining risk to ourselves,” the pair wrote. “The success of the whole caper centered in the absolute silence of all parties.”

Manoogian gave the Axe to the Stanford Athletic Department, which returned it to the Cal student body president during the game. The worst part of the whole episode, recalls Manoogian: “Cal won.”