Title
Blair Nicholas interview, conducted by Joan Curbow
Subject
Nicholas, James Blair
Nicholas, Karl
Nicholas, Bernice Blair
Buena Vista College--Oral histories
Oral histories--Iowa--Storm Lake
Description
An oral history interview with Blair Nicholas conducted on September 23, 2019 during his attendance at BVU Homecoming festivities.
Format
audio/mp3
Language
English
Type
Sound
Identifier
http://bvuarchives.bvu.edu/Audio/OralHistories/NicholasblairAKAJamesBlairNicholas.mp3
Interviewer
Joan Curbow
Interviewee
James Blair Nicholas -- prefers to be called Blair Nicholas
Location
Buena Vista University Library
Transcription
Joan Curbow [00:00:01] This is an interview conducted with Dr. James Blair Nicholas, a 1964 graduate of Buena Vista College on September 23, 2019, by Joan Curbow. He prefers to go by Blair. So, you graduated in 1964, so you must have entered as a freshman in 1960, is that correct?
Blair Nicholas [00:00:30] That is correct.
Joan Curbow [00:00:32] What was Buena Vista College like in 1960?
Blair Nicholas [00:00:37] Well, it was quite different than it is today. There were fewer buildings. There was the-- Old Main had burned, but the chapel had been built. Swope Hall was a women's dormitory with a dining room underneath in the lower level, of which I was a server for dinners there with the black tie and white shirt hired by the chef for that occasion. Smith Hall [Editor's note: He has switched to talking about a different building] was the lower level, which had the art. The second level was biology and analytical chemistry, and the third level was physics, math and chemistry and physics laboratories. And Dr. Christiansen was my mentor because I was a chemistry major, and he had his office on the top floor, of which I had a key. Now, during my freshman year, I had a lot more fun than later on because I was living off campus at 308 Grand Avenue, just across the street from the campus ever since I had been born in 1942. So, I grew up essentially on campus.
Joan Curbow [00:02:22] You did.
Blair Nicholas [00:02:23] And that was a lot of fun. But as a freshman, I did freshman things and wore beanies. Back in that day, all freshmen had to wear beanies, green with a yellow bill for the girls and yellow B.V. on the top. Now, you had to wear those in public, not in-- not in the-- your own room at the dorm or anything like that or the restrooms and so on. But if you were caught without your beanie, you had punishments. You had to run the paddle line, or they may have dunked you in water depending on how many violations you had. Then on Homecoming, the freshman class was there, a hundred percent, because if we won the Homecoming game, they could take their beanies off and not have to wear them any longer. Otherwise, they had to keep them on for the rest of the semester.
Joan Curbow [00:03:36] So how does all that behavior strike you now?
Blair Nicholas [00:03:41] Well, there was no drinking on campus at that time, and that was a lot of fun. But it has lost its importance in today's environment.
Joan Curbow [00:03:58] Did you get into trouble with beanie violations?
Blair Nicholas [00:04:02] Of course not.
Joan Curbow [00:04:05] [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:04:06] I knew the rules. [laughs] and as soon as I crossed the street, I could take mine off because I wasn't on campus. So, I didn't wear it at home necess-- but if I left the house, I better have it on if I was going to class.
Joan Curbow [00:04:25] So, what was your major?
Blair Nicholas [00:04:28] My major was my passion for chemistry, and I still do what I love to do. Even though I'm retired, I keep a Geiger-Muller counter--because I'm a nuclear chemist--on my desk in case we have any fallout from any nuclear incident. So, I-- and I'm very prepared in case we do have so that I can survive a nuclear incident, such as with Comanche Peak Nuclear Station, which is two reactors. It's only about 60 miles away from our home.
Joan Curbow [00:05:21] So were you interested in chemistry in high school already?
Blair Nicholas [00:05:26] Yes, my fir-- first introduction was chemistry in high school. Mr. Richard Kearney was my teacher. He taught me physics also, but he got me started in chemistry. But I didn't cause any blow-ups in the laboratory, which I didn't do in the-- Buena Vista College, as I say. Now, it's BVU, but it took me a long time to recognize the fact that it was now a university, then a college. But Dr. Christiansen taught all my chemistry classes because he was the only chemistry professor on campus on the-- on the staff at that time. And he was my mentor. And, also, the fact that he gave me other opportunities to excel. He got me an American Chemical Society grant to spend at the University of Nebraska, my summer activities between my junior and senior year. So I got acquainted with the UNL campus. I came back to Buena Vista to finish my senior year, had to write a paper for Dr. Christiansen's approval and, also, the American Chemical Society approval because I was using their money. It was the first time that I had been away from home because I lived at home during my first three, four years of-- here-- here at the university because I didn't have to pay room and board. And while I was there, since I had my first freedom away from my parents, I learned to fly a single engine aircraft and got my pilot's license.
Joan Curbow [00:07:37] You really did get to spread your wings, didn't you?
Blair Nicholas [00:07:40] Yes. Yes, I did. And my mother was scared to death when she found out. So, on Mother's Day, I gave her a gift of a flight around Storm Lake.
Joan Curbow [00:07:55] How lovely.
Blair Nicholas [00:07:56] So that's what I did up until my graduation as a chemistry major and graduated cum laude.
Joan Curbow [00:08:09] Um, do you remember how many students were in your graduating class?
Blair Nicholas [00:08:16] I'm not exactly sure, but I think it was around 80, and there was only the one campus. Now, BVU is several campuses, and I know that today, according to Dr. Merchant, that we have the largest freshman class of 212, the biggest one in the last six years. And so, I'm very proud to be part of BVU, just in that fact. I have not had the opportunity to bring students to BVU for interviews because now I reside in Arlington, Texas, and it's a three-day commute. [humorous snort] But I notice that we do have students from Texas and Arizona and New Mexico because I have a roster of the football team that played yesterday in the homecoming game as a souvenir.
Joan Curbow [00:09:23] Yes, we do draw students from a wide number of states now. So that was probably-- that's probably very different from when you were here-- [crosstalk] --more Iowans--
Blair Nicholas [00:09:34] Yes.
Joan Curbow [00:09:35] --than anything else.
Blair Nicholas [00:09:36] Correct. And I know you were mentioning about my father being a graduate of BVC, and he taught here in Iowa. He and my mother, Bernice Blair Nicholas, they resided in Feb-- Webb, Iowa, and he taught in Albert City, Webb, Sioux Rapids, various other smaller rural communities, and was a coach, a math teacher, a principal, and a superintendent of schools. And he always attended the class reunions.
Joan Curbow [00:10:28] He was a loyal Beaver.
Blair Nicholas [00:10:30] Yes. And I knew that I was going to be a Beaver from birth because both my parents were Beavers, OK? Much of my family have been Beavers. And I was born on February 2nd, 1942, which is Groundhog's Day. Now, a groundhog is a long-lost cousin of a beaver. So, I knew I was going to probably be that cousin as a Beaver.
Joan Curbow [00:11:08] [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:11:08] And my father named the Beavers.
Joan Curbow [00:11:13] Yes, he did.
Blair Nicholas [00:11:15] In 1921 before he graduated in 1922 because he was the sports editor of the Tack, and the teams were called BV'ers, and he said that's too long to write and too many punctuations and so on. So, he proposed at a pep rally, before one of the football games, and the student council was there, the coach was there, the football team was go-- there because always before it was Buena Vista College football team. And he proposed the fact, well, why don't we call the team the Beavers? Because they're hard-working [pause] uh-- people, as the students at BVC were hard-working people, and Storm Lake had beavers in the in the west lake. So, it just seemed to fit together.
Joan Curbow [00:12:28] Right. Right. And it's stood us in good stead, that name.
Blair Nicholas [00:12:33] Yes, it's almost 98. It's 98-years-old this year. So, we're looking forward to possibly a hundred-year anniversary in a couple of years. [laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:12:52] Um-- Besides--um, chemistry classes, what were some of your favorite classes when you were a student?
Blair Nicholas [00:12:59] Well, I'm not sure it was my favorite class, but it was economics by Dr. Reynolds [George Reynolds]. It was a 7:30 class on Friday morning. And Dr. Reynolds would get up and speak in front of the class. There probably was 30 or 35 because it was a-- a credit course and he would get up there, fold his hands, close his eyes and just lecture. Sometimes he'd get off on a-- on a tangent, but then somebody might raise their hands or call his name or something like that and say, where are you going with this, Dr. Reynolds? And he'd say, "Oh, did I get off track? OK. Well, anyway, how many more minutes do I have?".
Joan Curbow [00:14:09] [Laughs].
Blair Nicholas [00:14:09] [A student would tell him:] "You have 20 more minutes." [Reynolds would respond:] "OK." And he'd-- he'd talk continuously right up to the time the--. He says, "OK, we'll see you on Monday."
Joan Curbow [00:14:23] His granddaughter teaches here. She's a theatre professor.
Blair Nicholas [00:14:26] OK, well anyway, and you ask about, of course, the religion classes. Reverend Eggink was a professor that I took. I think I took New Testament with him and, I knew Dr. Tollefson, and I didn't have a class with him. But we went to the same Lakeside Presbyterian Church, where I was baptized, and my parents were married there. And so, we have strong ties with the Presbyterian Synod and the church as part of Buena Vista's heritage.
Joan Curbow [00:15:09] Indeed. Indeed.
Blair Nicholas [00:15:10] And then I've got-- music was my other-- I almost-- If I'd had enough time, I could have gotten a music ma-- minor. I played in the band--clarinet--under Professor [Will] Green and I sang in the chorus under Professor [Robert] Pfaltzgraff at that time. I went on recruiting trips with the band and the choir, so I hope that I made an impression that way. However, I was alarmed when I learned that we didn't have any band here at BVU for 21 years.
Joan Curbow [00:16:04] Well, we didn't have a marching band.
Blair Nicholas [00:16:06] A marching band.
Joan Curbow [00:16:07] We've had a concert band, I think pretty much continuously, but no marching band.
Blair Nicholas [00:16:13] Well, that that's where the fun is. [Laughter] So, anyway, I'm very proud of the fact that now you do have a pep band and a marching band. I was looking forward to seeing formations on the field at Homecoming, but that'll happen next year.
Joan Curbow [00:16:36] It all takes time--
Blair Nicholas [00:16:38] Yes.
Joan Curbow [00:16:38] --to redevelop a program, and she's, um, Tiffany Wurth is doing a good job [crosstalk]
Blair Nicholas [00:16:44] I haven't met Tiffany yet, but I hope to do so after this interview.
Joan Curbow [00:16:53] Good. Good, I'm sure you'll enjoy that. Um, were there many women in your math and science classes in the 1960s?
Blair Nicholas [00:17:07] No, in my physical chemistry class, there were two males. In my organic chemistry class, there were no females. Analytical chemistry, I think there were like maybe four or five. But in general chemistry, the first semester of the freshman year, it was probably one-third out of the class were-- were females because they may have been wanting to go into elementary teaching or secondary teaching and needed to have a science credit and—but, yet, did not want to go any further with their chemistry education. So I hope that helps you understand what went on there, because, you know, this was a teaching institution. Many of the graduates went into teaching. I thought of doing that at one time after my postgraduate work, but it was pi-- publish or perish, and I didn't want to perish. So, I went into public safety. In-- in the nuclear area.
Joan Curbow [00:18:41] So how did BV prepare you--besides the opportunity that Dr. Christiansen gave you with that summer of study at UNL? How else do you think BV prepared you for your life after college?
Blair Nicholas [00:18:58] Well, it gave me confidence and gave me opportunities to do things that promoted me to go uh-- into graduate school. I probably would have never thought about going to graduate school if Dr. Christiansen hadn't urged me to do so. And with the opportunity to go to the University of Nebraska, I was still within two hours of home, and I could uh-- come home if-- if necessary. And at that time, I was dating a young lady that uh-- lived here in Storm Lake, which I married at a later time, and she went to the University of Nebraska to follow me. So, uh-- we were married before I finished my master's degree, and we had a son.
Joan Curbow [00:20:10] Uh-- besides band and choir, what else were you involved in on campus?
Blair Nicholas [00:20:15] I was a member of Gamma Sigma Phi Fraternity. I can remember my initiation, but it's not uh-- publishable.
Joan Curbow [00:20:34] [Laughs} OK, we'll leave it there.
Blair Nicholas [00:20:35] Yes. [Laughs] Well, I can tell you-- [Laughs] it's not good for TV exposure.
Joan Curbow [00:20:50] [Laughs] Other clubs or groups that you were involved with?
Blair Nicholas [00:20:53] I was a part of-- the-- science honorary fraternity and-- the Lambda Sigma Tau and-- and [microphone interference] so that was not-- that was more of an honor, I guess you would say. Now, living off campus with your parents restricts a lot of your college activities. However, I was well known on campus because I knew all the professors before I ever came here, and they knew me, and they knew my parents and I was afraid I'd get reported.
Joan Curbow [00:21:47] Right. You couldn't hide very well.
Blair Nicholas [00:21:49] No, no.
Joan Curbow [00:21:49] Living right across the street. [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:21:50] No, you can run, but you can't hide. [Laughs] So anyway-- but I did take take-- take part in as many activities as I could. And I went to all the sports activities, basketball, baseball, softball. We didn't have soccer back then and-- football. And my dad being a former football player here at BVC, he watched every single game out his front-room window across to what was called Bradford Field at the time. And it didn't have turf.
Joan Curbow [00:22:36] Right.
Blair Nicholas [00:22:37] It was very muddy on rainy days. But I ran track on the track because the high school and elementary schools held track meets on the college property because they didn't have their own. I've run quite a few miles on that track down there, and I did broad jump, and I have some ribbons to prove it. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:23:08] So, because you did live at home and your home was right across the street and because you knew all the professors and you didn't want to get into trouble, did you witness pranks that other people pulled if you didn't take part in them yourself?
Blair Nicholas [00:23:26] If-- if I would-- would tell you what those words-- things were, I probably have to shoot you.
Joan Curbow [00:23:35] [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:23:36] However-- however, my-- my dad was something else. Back in the '60s, there-- there was a waterbed craze, and many of the guys in the dorm wanted waterbeds. Now, how do you get water into a waterbed in a men's dorm across the street? You hook up a hose to the neighbors.
Joan Curbow [00:24:04] [Laughs].
Blair Nicholas [00:24:04] And dad furnished the water. Ran a hose across Grand Avenue up the side of the dorm into the windows where the boys wanted to fill their waterbeds.
Joan Curbow [00:24:18] So Blair Nicholas was behaving himself, but Carl Nicholas wasn't. [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:24:25] [Laughs] I don't know that I want to-- want to condemn my father like that. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:24:30] He ran up quite a water bill, though, I'm sure.
Blair Nicholas [00:24:32] I didn't have to pay it. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:24:36] [Laughs] That's a great story. [They both laugh.] So, I'm guessing because it was still the early 1960s, that chapel was mandatory?
Blair Nicholas [00:24:50] Yes, it was. And you wore your beanies to chapel as freshmen. But yes, it was mandatory, and you had to have so many religion credits to graduate. I'm not sure, I think it was two semesters of religion.
Joan Curbow [00:25:07] But-- Schaller Chapel was not built yet, was it? Or was it when you were a student?
Blair Nicholas [00:25:15] Ye-- I think it was before I graduated.
Joan Curbow [00:25:19] Before you graduated, OK.
Blair Nicholas [00:25:21] Not maybe when I was a freshman. It's hard. I'm seventy-seven years old. I don't remember everything. You know how these professors can lose their track? Yeah, well, sometimes I do, too.
Joan Curbow [00:25:40] But do you remember going to chapel in Schaller Chapel?
Blair Nicholas [00:25:44] Oh, yes.
Joan Curbow [00:25:44] Yeah. OK.
Blair Nicholas [00:25:44] Sure. And graduations. By the way, my graduation was held on the lawn in front of Schaller Chapel. It was not an inside-- graduation. And I think there were like 82 or 83 in my graduating class, something like that.
Joan Curbow [00:26:11] Did your class walk through the arch? The old arch--.
Blair Nicholas [00:26:17] No.
Joan Curbow [00:26:17] Do you remember that?
Blair Nicholas [00:26:19] No.
Joan Curbow [00:26:21] No.
Blair Nicholas [00:26:21] And the old arch was down on the southeast corner of the campus at that time, across from Edson Hall.
Joan Curbow [00:26:30] Uh-hmm.
Blair Nicholas [00:26:30] And the Victory Bell was down there. And all of this new Forum thing with the change-- change of the location has made a lot of changes for BVU. Now, when the installation of President Merc-- Merchant in this past year, I marched with the alumni and faculty through the arch and over to the installation. But I did not-- wear my doctorial [sic] garb at that time. I was a citizen [laughs] alumni citizen. Now, I did play clarinet in the band and-- under the direction, as I said, with Professor Green. Now, when I was in junior high, I was the only person to play in the Storm Lake Municipal Band because Professor Green and his wife, Adeline, who played clarinet, tutored me and he wanted me to play in the municipal band. Now, get this. I got two dollars a practice on Monday night and two dollars a concert. That was big money.
Joan Curbow [00:28:12] It was. It was.
Blair Nicholas [00:28:14] And a white shirt and a long black tie and black trousers every Sunday afternoon, whether it was the Fourth of July or not.
Joan Curbow [00:28:27] So let's circle back a little bit to your parents, because, as you mentioned, they were both graduates of Buena Vista College. What stories did they tell you about their college days?
Blair Nicholas [00:28:40] Well, I mean, that's a very difficult question because they didn't really discuss. See, I was born in '42. That was almost two generations past when they were going to school here and things had changed so drastically. I don't think they wanted to downgrade my opportunity because Old Main was the only thing they knew. And when I was a freshman also, I worked in the library, but they promoted me to go to Buena Vista. I mean, there was no question about it. I was going to be a Beaver, and I always wanted to be. And I knew the campus because I knew all the professors and I would see them almost on a daily basis, one or two or whatever, you know. And during the-- when I-- when I was a child, I was on campus a lot. And this is when before the chap-- chapel was built and before the-- Old Main burned in 1958, [Editor's note: Old Main burned in 1956.] I would-- there was a pathway from Old Main down past Smith Hall to the intersection of Third Street and Grand. And then three-- three or maybe 100 yards down was my residence. I could slide my sled from the top of the hill all the way down and watch for traffic at the intersection when we had snow on the ground. And I also had a Pinewood Derby car that I built and did the same thing in the summer. And I could go from Old Man all the way to my house in one fell swoop. I don't know if that's very interesting for you, but nevertheless--
Joan Curbow [00:31:03] You had a unique experience with Buena Vista.
Blair Nicholas [00:31:05] Right.
Joan Curbow [00:31:07] A long and unique experience.
Blair Nicholas [00:31:08] And-- my father was a scrapbooker. He has got pictures of his VB-- Buena Vista days, of Mother's days because she came two years after he did. Well, three years, I guess. He was-- she was a freshman, and he was a senior. He came from Lake Park, Iowa, and she came from Early, Iowa. No, no. She lived here in Storm Lake at 308 Grand because she moved there when she was five years old, because my parents-- my grandparents had purchased that house in 1909 for 5000 dollars, land and all. Even the goat pasture in the backyard where the Siebens Athletic Center is and the science center. Now, the scrapbooks are wonderful photo memories of my parents and-- and their activities here. I've got my father in football uniform. I've got my mother in a sorority May Day celebration. I've got him in his S-- SOTA or SATA, like ROTC for student--
Joan Curbow [00:32:56] I believe it's SATC.
Blair Nicholas [00:32:58] Yeah. S.A.T.C. uniform and his discharge papers from-- from that and from the Army after World War II. He never served other than here in the state of Iowa and Minnesota, but he was never deployed outside the United States because it was near the end of the conflict. And he got a National G-- from the National Guard-- Guard, he got an honorable discharge. Going through the scrapbooks, I learned something that I didn't know. He never told me. It said "Bugler." He was a bugler, first class-- first class, pri-- private bugler. I never knew that. Now, I know-- want to know where the bugle is. So it's an interesting thing that I had not known except through the scrapbooks,
Joan Curbow [00:34:10] You're fortunate. Not all of us have those kinds of records about our parents' lives before we were born. You're very fortunate to have that.
Blair Nicholas [00:34:17] Yes. And we-- we are kind of archivists ourselves. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:34:27] So you must have been a teenager when Old Main burned. Do you remember--
Blair Nicholas [00:34:33] Yes--
Joan Curbow [00:34:35] things about it?
Blair Nicholas [00:34:35] Yes, I do. It was a horrible situation. I was practicing my clarinet in the front room of my home, and my parents were watching television or something like this, you know, because this started around nine-thirty or something of that nature in the evening. And we heard the fire sirens going, and they kept getting closer and closer and closer. And my father said, "I wonder what's going on." So, we both hurried out to the front porch, and we could see flames shooting out of the top of Old Main. Well, you can about imagine the emotions from that. And so, we grabbed a-- a wagon that we still had from my childhood, rushed up there, and my dad even went into Old Main and started carrying books and documents out and loading the wagon up. And we pulled it down to Edson Hall, unloaded and came back up for another load because other students and people from Storm Lake were busily carrying documents and books out of Old Main and stacking them up on the yard lawn. And we didn't get them-- want to have water soaking from the fire, you know, trying to put out the fire because they would be ruined. And so, we got them offsite, so to speak, as far as we could. And we probably worked till 3:00 a.m. in the morning. And fire companies from all the rural volunteer fire departments came to help put out Old Main, and it was a sorry sight the next day to-- it's just like the-- the fire at Notre Dame that we just experienced in Paris. You know, here was this monument to this university that was destroyed to the ground. And the stones that were there were salvaged to form the arch that we now know.
Joan Curbow [00:36:50] That's a great legacy.
Blair Nicholas [00:36:50] Yes. And I think the students get to know that in their indoctrination here. And it's a meaningful thing--
Joan Curbow [00:37:04] It is very meaningful to watch students walk through the arch when they are freshmen and watch them graduate.
Blair Nicholas [00:37:09] Right--
Joan Curbow [00:37:10] It's meaningful to me.
[00:37:11] It was the first time when I came for Dr. Merchant's installation that I had walked through the arch [i.e. the new arch built in 1985], and it was very meaningful for me.
Joan Curbow [00:37:22] It is. Is there anything else you would like to add before we conclude?
Joan Curbow [00:37:29] Well, I think I've told you quite a bit, but I'm hoping that Buena Vista University will last for many more years to come and grow over the years because they offer such a wide range of opportunities for students all across our great nation. They don't even re-- think-- students don't think in California, oh, I got to go to UCLA or something like that. Why can you come to rural Iowa and experience something you've never seen before and get the opportunities for an education that you might not be able to do on a larger campus? And there's a new program out, it's "See what we'll build", and
I hope that this university will build and build and build over the years. That my home [308 Grand] will last for a family in Alta, Iowa, because it was purchased and moved there and loved and lived in and that the green space where it once stood, maybe some-- something else put there or just remain a green space, which I would love. But nevertheless, I know where I grew up, and Storm Lake is my hometown.
Joan Curbow [00:39:17] Thank you very much.
Blair Nicholas [00:00:30] That is correct.
Joan Curbow [00:00:32] What was Buena Vista College like in 1960?
Blair Nicholas [00:00:37] Well, it was quite different than it is today. There were fewer buildings. There was the-- Old Main had burned, but the chapel had been built. Swope Hall was a women's dormitory with a dining room underneath in the lower level, of which I was a server for dinners there with the black tie and white shirt hired by the chef for that occasion. Smith Hall [Editor's note: He has switched to talking about a different building] was the lower level, which had the art. The second level was biology and analytical chemistry, and the third level was physics, math and chemistry and physics laboratories. And Dr. Christiansen was my mentor because I was a chemistry major, and he had his office on the top floor, of which I had a key. Now, during my freshman year, I had a lot more fun than later on because I was living off campus at 308 Grand Avenue, just across the street from the campus ever since I had been born in 1942. So, I grew up essentially on campus.
Joan Curbow [00:02:22] You did.
Blair Nicholas [00:02:23] And that was a lot of fun. But as a freshman, I did freshman things and wore beanies. Back in that day, all freshmen had to wear beanies, green with a yellow bill for the girls and yellow B.V. on the top. Now, you had to wear those in public, not in-- not in the-- your own room at the dorm or anything like that or the restrooms and so on. But if you were caught without your beanie, you had punishments. You had to run the paddle line, or they may have dunked you in water depending on how many violations you had. Then on Homecoming, the freshman class was there, a hundred percent, because if we won the Homecoming game, they could take their beanies off and not have to wear them any longer. Otherwise, they had to keep them on for the rest of the semester.
Joan Curbow [00:03:36] So how does all that behavior strike you now?
Blair Nicholas [00:03:41] Well, there was no drinking on campus at that time, and that was a lot of fun. But it has lost its importance in today's environment.
Joan Curbow [00:03:58] Did you get into trouble with beanie violations?
Blair Nicholas [00:04:02] Of course not.
Joan Curbow [00:04:05] [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:04:06] I knew the rules. [laughs] and as soon as I crossed the street, I could take mine off because I wasn't on campus. So, I didn't wear it at home necess-- but if I left the house, I better have it on if I was going to class.
Joan Curbow [00:04:25] So, what was your major?
Blair Nicholas [00:04:28] My major was my passion for chemistry, and I still do what I love to do. Even though I'm retired, I keep a Geiger-Muller counter--because I'm a nuclear chemist--on my desk in case we have any fallout from any nuclear incident. So, I-- and I'm very prepared in case we do have so that I can survive a nuclear incident, such as with Comanche Peak Nuclear Station, which is two reactors. It's only about 60 miles away from our home.
Joan Curbow [00:05:21] So were you interested in chemistry in high school already?
Blair Nicholas [00:05:26] Yes, my fir-- first introduction was chemistry in high school. Mr. Richard Kearney was my teacher. He taught me physics also, but he got me started in chemistry. But I didn't cause any blow-ups in the laboratory, which I didn't do in the-- Buena Vista College, as I say. Now, it's BVU, but it took me a long time to recognize the fact that it was now a university, then a college. But Dr. Christiansen taught all my chemistry classes because he was the only chemistry professor on campus on the-- on the staff at that time. And he was my mentor. And, also, the fact that he gave me other opportunities to excel. He got me an American Chemical Society grant to spend at the University of Nebraska, my summer activities between my junior and senior year. So I got acquainted with the UNL campus. I came back to Buena Vista to finish my senior year, had to write a paper for Dr. Christiansen's approval and, also, the American Chemical Society approval because I was using their money. It was the first time that I had been away from home because I lived at home during my first three, four years of-- here-- here at the university because I didn't have to pay room and board. And while I was there, since I had my first freedom away from my parents, I learned to fly a single engine aircraft and got my pilot's license.
Joan Curbow [00:07:37] You really did get to spread your wings, didn't you?
Blair Nicholas [00:07:40] Yes. Yes, I did. And my mother was scared to death when she found out. So, on Mother's Day, I gave her a gift of a flight around Storm Lake.
Joan Curbow [00:07:55] How lovely.
Blair Nicholas [00:07:56] So that's what I did up until my graduation as a chemistry major and graduated cum laude.
Joan Curbow [00:08:09] Um, do you remember how many students were in your graduating class?
Blair Nicholas [00:08:16] I'm not exactly sure, but I think it was around 80, and there was only the one campus. Now, BVU is several campuses, and I know that today, according to Dr. Merchant, that we have the largest freshman class of 212, the biggest one in the last six years. And so, I'm very proud to be part of BVU, just in that fact. I have not had the opportunity to bring students to BVU for interviews because now I reside in Arlington, Texas, and it's a three-day commute. [humorous snort] But I notice that we do have students from Texas and Arizona and New Mexico because I have a roster of the football team that played yesterday in the homecoming game as a souvenir.
Joan Curbow [00:09:23] Yes, we do draw students from a wide number of states now. So that was probably-- that's probably very different from when you were here-- [crosstalk] --more Iowans--
Blair Nicholas [00:09:34] Yes.
Joan Curbow [00:09:35] --than anything else.
Blair Nicholas [00:09:36] Correct. And I know you were mentioning about my father being a graduate of BVC, and he taught here in Iowa. He and my mother, Bernice Blair Nicholas, they resided in Feb-- Webb, Iowa, and he taught in Albert City, Webb, Sioux Rapids, various other smaller rural communities, and was a coach, a math teacher, a principal, and a superintendent of schools. And he always attended the class reunions.
Joan Curbow [00:10:28] He was a loyal Beaver.
Blair Nicholas [00:10:30] Yes. And I knew that I was going to be a Beaver from birth because both my parents were Beavers, OK? Much of my family have been Beavers. And I was born on February 2nd, 1942, which is Groundhog's Day. Now, a groundhog is a long-lost cousin of a beaver. So, I knew I was going to probably be that cousin as a Beaver.
Joan Curbow [00:11:08] [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:11:08] And my father named the Beavers.
Joan Curbow [00:11:13] Yes, he did.
Blair Nicholas [00:11:15] In 1921 before he graduated in 1922 because he was the sports editor of the Tack, and the teams were called BV'ers, and he said that's too long to write and too many punctuations and so on. So, he proposed at a pep rally, before one of the football games, and the student council was there, the coach was there, the football team was go-- there because always before it was Buena Vista College football team. And he proposed the fact, well, why don't we call the team the Beavers? Because they're hard-working [pause] uh-- people, as the students at BVC were hard-working people, and Storm Lake had beavers in the in the west lake. So, it just seemed to fit together.
Joan Curbow [00:12:28] Right. Right. And it's stood us in good stead, that name.
Blair Nicholas [00:12:33] Yes, it's almost 98. It's 98-years-old this year. So, we're looking forward to possibly a hundred-year anniversary in a couple of years. [laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:12:52] Um-- Besides--um, chemistry classes, what were some of your favorite classes when you were a student?
Blair Nicholas [00:12:59] Well, I'm not sure it was my favorite class, but it was economics by Dr. Reynolds [George Reynolds]. It was a 7:30 class on Friday morning. And Dr. Reynolds would get up and speak in front of the class. There probably was 30 or 35 because it was a-- a credit course and he would get up there, fold his hands, close his eyes and just lecture. Sometimes he'd get off on a-- on a tangent, but then somebody might raise their hands or call his name or something like that and say, where are you going with this, Dr. Reynolds? And he'd say, "Oh, did I get off track? OK. Well, anyway, how many more minutes do I have?".
Joan Curbow [00:14:09] [Laughs].
Blair Nicholas [00:14:09] [A student would tell him:] "You have 20 more minutes." [Reynolds would respond:] "OK." And he'd-- he'd talk continuously right up to the time the--. He says, "OK, we'll see you on Monday."
Joan Curbow [00:14:23] His granddaughter teaches here. She's a theatre professor.
Blair Nicholas [00:14:26] OK, well anyway, and you ask about, of course, the religion classes. Reverend Eggink was a professor that I took. I think I took New Testament with him and, I knew Dr. Tollefson, and I didn't have a class with him. But we went to the same Lakeside Presbyterian Church, where I was baptized, and my parents were married there. And so, we have strong ties with the Presbyterian Synod and the church as part of Buena Vista's heritage.
Joan Curbow [00:15:09] Indeed. Indeed.
Blair Nicholas [00:15:10] And then I've got-- music was my other-- I almost-- If I'd had enough time, I could have gotten a music ma-- minor. I played in the band--clarinet--under Professor [Will] Green and I sang in the chorus under Professor [Robert] Pfaltzgraff at that time. I went on recruiting trips with the band and the choir, so I hope that I made an impression that way. However, I was alarmed when I learned that we didn't have any band here at BVU for 21 years.
Joan Curbow [00:16:04] Well, we didn't have a marching band.
Blair Nicholas [00:16:06] A marching band.
Joan Curbow [00:16:07] We've had a concert band, I think pretty much continuously, but no marching band.
Blair Nicholas [00:16:13] Well, that that's where the fun is. [Laughter] So, anyway, I'm very proud of the fact that now you do have a pep band and a marching band. I was looking forward to seeing formations on the field at Homecoming, but that'll happen next year.
Joan Curbow [00:16:36] It all takes time--
Blair Nicholas [00:16:38] Yes.
Joan Curbow [00:16:38] --to redevelop a program, and she's, um, Tiffany Wurth is doing a good job [crosstalk]
Blair Nicholas [00:16:44] I haven't met Tiffany yet, but I hope to do so after this interview.
Joan Curbow [00:16:53] Good. Good, I'm sure you'll enjoy that. Um, were there many women in your math and science classes in the 1960s?
Blair Nicholas [00:17:07] No, in my physical chemistry class, there were two males. In my organic chemistry class, there were no females. Analytical chemistry, I think there were like maybe four or five. But in general chemistry, the first semester of the freshman year, it was probably one-third out of the class were-- were females because they may have been wanting to go into elementary teaching or secondary teaching and needed to have a science credit and—but, yet, did not want to go any further with their chemistry education. So I hope that helps you understand what went on there, because, you know, this was a teaching institution. Many of the graduates went into teaching. I thought of doing that at one time after my postgraduate work, but it was pi-- publish or perish, and I didn't want to perish. So, I went into public safety. In-- in the nuclear area.
Joan Curbow [00:18:41] So how did BV prepare you--besides the opportunity that Dr. Christiansen gave you with that summer of study at UNL? How else do you think BV prepared you for your life after college?
Blair Nicholas [00:18:58] Well, it gave me confidence and gave me opportunities to do things that promoted me to go uh-- into graduate school. I probably would have never thought about going to graduate school if Dr. Christiansen hadn't urged me to do so. And with the opportunity to go to the University of Nebraska, I was still within two hours of home, and I could uh-- come home if-- if necessary. And at that time, I was dating a young lady that uh-- lived here in Storm Lake, which I married at a later time, and she went to the University of Nebraska to follow me. So, uh-- we were married before I finished my master's degree, and we had a son.
Joan Curbow [00:20:10] Uh-- besides band and choir, what else were you involved in on campus?
Blair Nicholas [00:20:15] I was a member of Gamma Sigma Phi Fraternity. I can remember my initiation, but it's not uh-- publishable.
Joan Curbow [00:20:34] [Laughs} OK, we'll leave it there.
Blair Nicholas [00:20:35] Yes. [Laughs] Well, I can tell you-- [Laughs] it's not good for TV exposure.
Joan Curbow [00:20:50] [Laughs] Other clubs or groups that you were involved with?
Blair Nicholas [00:20:53] I was a part of-- the-- science honorary fraternity and-- the Lambda Sigma Tau and-- and [microphone interference] so that was not-- that was more of an honor, I guess you would say. Now, living off campus with your parents restricts a lot of your college activities. However, I was well known on campus because I knew all the professors before I ever came here, and they knew me, and they knew my parents and I was afraid I'd get reported.
Joan Curbow [00:21:47] Right. You couldn't hide very well.
Blair Nicholas [00:21:49] No, no.
Joan Curbow [00:21:49] Living right across the street. [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:21:50] No, you can run, but you can't hide. [Laughs] So anyway-- but I did take take-- take part in as many activities as I could. And I went to all the sports activities, basketball, baseball, softball. We didn't have soccer back then and-- football. And my dad being a former football player here at BVC, he watched every single game out his front-room window across to what was called Bradford Field at the time. And it didn't have turf.
Joan Curbow [00:22:36] Right.
Blair Nicholas [00:22:37] It was very muddy on rainy days. But I ran track on the track because the high school and elementary schools held track meets on the college property because they didn't have their own. I've run quite a few miles on that track down there, and I did broad jump, and I have some ribbons to prove it. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:23:08] So, because you did live at home and your home was right across the street and because you knew all the professors and you didn't want to get into trouble, did you witness pranks that other people pulled if you didn't take part in them yourself?
Blair Nicholas [00:23:26] If-- if I would-- would tell you what those words-- things were, I probably have to shoot you.
Joan Curbow [00:23:35] [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:23:36] However-- however, my-- my dad was something else. Back in the '60s, there-- there was a waterbed craze, and many of the guys in the dorm wanted waterbeds. Now, how do you get water into a waterbed in a men's dorm across the street? You hook up a hose to the neighbors.
Joan Curbow [00:24:04] [Laughs].
Blair Nicholas [00:24:04] And dad furnished the water. Ran a hose across Grand Avenue up the side of the dorm into the windows where the boys wanted to fill their waterbeds.
Joan Curbow [00:24:18] So Blair Nicholas was behaving himself, but Carl Nicholas wasn't. [Laughs]
Blair Nicholas [00:24:25] [Laughs] I don't know that I want to-- want to condemn my father like that. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:24:30] He ran up quite a water bill, though, I'm sure.
Blair Nicholas [00:24:32] I didn't have to pay it. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:24:36] [Laughs] That's a great story. [They both laugh.] So, I'm guessing because it was still the early 1960s, that chapel was mandatory?
Blair Nicholas [00:24:50] Yes, it was. And you wore your beanies to chapel as freshmen. But yes, it was mandatory, and you had to have so many religion credits to graduate. I'm not sure, I think it was two semesters of religion.
Joan Curbow [00:25:07] But-- Schaller Chapel was not built yet, was it? Or was it when you were a student?
Blair Nicholas [00:25:15] Ye-- I think it was before I graduated.
Joan Curbow [00:25:19] Before you graduated, OK.
Blair Nicholas [00:25:21] Not maybe when I was a freshman. It's hard. I'm seventy-seven years old. I don't remember everything. You know how these professors can lose their track? Yeah, well, sometimes I do, too.
Joan Curbow [00:25:40] But do you remember going to chapel in Schaller Chapel?
Blair Nicholas [00:25:44] Oh, yes.
Joan Curbow [00:25:44] Yeah. OK.
Blair Nicholas [00:25:44] Sure. And graduations. By the way, my graduation was held on the lawn in front of Schaller Chapel. It was not an inside-- graduation. And I think there were like 82 or 83 in my graduating class, something like that.
Joan Curbow [00:26:11] Did your class walk through the arch? The old arch--.
Blair Nicholas [00:26:17] No.
Joan Curbow [00:26:17] Do you remember that?
Blair Nicholas [00:26:19] No.
Joan Curbow [00:26:21] No.
Blair Nicholas [00:26:21] And the old arch was down on the southeast corner of the campus at that time, across from Edson Hall.
Joan Curbow [00:26:30] Uh-hmm.
Blair Nicholas [00:26:30] And the Victory Bell was down there. And all of this new Forum thing with the change-- change of the location has made a lot of changes for BVU. Now, when the installation of President Merc-- Merchant in this past year, I marched with the alumni and faculty through the arch and over to the installation. But I did not-- wear my doctorial [sic] garb at that time. I was a citizen [laughs] alumni citizen. Now, I did play clarinet in the band and-- under the direction, as I said, with Professor Green. Now, when I was in junior high, I was the only person to play in the Storm Lake Municipal Band because Professor Green and his wife, Adeline, who played clarinet, tutored me and he wanted me to play in the municipal band. Now, get this. I got two dollars a practice on Monday night and two dollars a concert. That was big money.
Joan Curbow [00:28:12] It was. It was.
Blair Nicholas [00:28:14] And a white shirt and a long black tie and black trousers every Sunday afternoon, whether it was the Fourth of July or not.
Joan Curbow [00:28:27] So let's circle back a little bit to your parents, because, as you mentioned, they were both graduates of Buena Vista College. What stories did they tell you about their college days?
Blair Nicholas [00:28:40] Well, I mean, that's a very difficult question because they didn't really discuss. See, I was born in '42. That was almost two generations past when they were going to school here and things had changed so drastically. I don't think they wanted to downgrade my opportunity because Old Main was the only thing they knew. And when I was a freshman also, I worked in the library, but they promoted me to go to Buena Vista. I mean, there was no question about it. I was going to be a Beaver, and I always wanted to be. And I knew the campus because I knew all the professors and I would see them almost on a daily basis, one or two or whatever, you know. And during the-- when I-- when I was a child, I was on campus a lot. And this is when before the chap-- chapel was built and before the-- Old Main burned in 1958, [Editor's note: Old Main burned in 1956.] I would-- there was a pathway from Old Main down past Smith Hall to the intersection of Third Street and Grand. And then three-- three or maybe 100 yards down was my residence. I could slide my sled from the top of the hill all the way down and watch for traffic at the intersection when we had snow on the ground. And I also had a Pinewood Derby car that I built and did the same thing in the summer. And I could go from Old Man all the way to my house in one fell swoop. I don't know if that's very interesting for you, but nevertheless--
Joan Curbow [00:31:03] You had a unique experience with Buena Vista.
Blair Nicholas [00:31:05] Right.
Joan Curbow [00:31:07] A long and unique experience.
Blair Nicholas [00:31:08] And-- my father was a scrapbooker. He has got pictures of his VB-- Buena Vista days, of Mother's days because she came two years after he did. Well, three years, I guess. He was-- she was a freshman, and he was a senior. He came from Lake Park, Iowa, and she came from Early, Iowa. No, no. She lived here in Storm Lake at 308 Grand because she moved there when she was five years old, because my parents-- my grandparents had purchased that house in 1909 for 5000 dollars, land and all. Even the goat pasture in the backyard where the Siebens Athletic Center is and the science center. Now, the scrapbooks are wonderful photo memories of my parents and-- and their activities here. I've got my father in football uniform. I've got my mother in a sorority May Day celebration. I've got him in his S-- SOTA or SATA, like ROTC for student--
Joan Curbow [00:32:56] I believe it's SATC.
Blair Nicholas [00:32:58] Yeah. S.A.T.C. uniform and his discharge papers from-- from that and from the Army after World War II. He never served other than here in the state of Iowa and Minnesota, but he was never deployed outside the United States because it was near the end of the conflict. And he got a National G-- from the National Guard-- Guard, he got an honorable discharge. Going through the scrapbooks, I learned something that I didn't know. He never told me. It said "Bugler." He was a bugler, first class-- first class, pri-- private bugler. I never knew that. Now, I know-- want to know where the bugle is. So it's an interesting thing that I had not known except through the scrapbooks,
Joan Curbow [00:34:10] You're fortunate. Not all of us have those kinds of records about our parents' lives before we were born. You're very fortunate to have that.
Blair Nicholas [00:34:17] Yes. And we-- we are kind of archivists ourselves. [Laughs]
Joan Curbow [00:34:27] So you must have been a teenager when Old Main burned. Do you remember--
Blair Nicholas [00:34:33] Yes--
Joan Curbow [00:34:35] things about it?
Blair Nicholas [00:34:35] Yes, I do. It was a horrible situation. I was practicing my clarinet in the front room of my home, and my parents were watching television or something like this, you know, because this started around nine-thirty or something of that nature in the evening. And we heard the fire sirens going, and they kept getting closer and closer and closer. And my father said, "I wonder what's going on." So, we both hurried out to the front porch, and we could see flames shooting out of the top of Old Main. Well, you can about imagine the emotions from that. And so, we grabbed a-- a wagon that we still had from my childhood, rushed up there, and my dad even went into Old Main and started carrying books and documents out and loading the wagon up. And we pulled it down to Edson Hall, unloaded and came back up for another load because other students and people from Storm Lake were busily carrying documents and books out of Old Main and stacking them up on the yard lawn. And we didn't get them-- want to have water soaking from the fire, you know, trying to put out the fire because they would be ruined. And so, we got them offsite, so to speak, as far as we could. And we probably worked till 3:00 a.m. in the morning. And fire companies from all the rural volunteer fire departments came to help put out Old Main, and it was a sorry sight the next day to-- it's just like the-- the fire at Notre Dame that we just experienced in Paris. You know, here was this monument to this university that was destroyed to the ground. And the stones that were there were salvaged to form the arch that we now know.
Joan Curbow [00:36:50] That's a great legacy.
Blair Nicholas [00:36:50] Yes. And I think the students get to know that in their indoctrination here. And it's a meaningful thing--
Joan Curbow [00:37:04] It is very meaningful to watch students walk through the arch when they are freshmen and watch them graduate.
Blair Nicholas [00:37:09] Right--
Joan Curbow [00:37:10] It's meaningful to me.
[00:37:11] It was the first time when I came for Dr. Merchant's installation that I had walked through the arch [i.e. the new arch built in 1985], and it was very meaningful for me.
Joan Curbow [00:37:22] It is. Is there anything else you would like to add before we conclude?
Joan Curbow [00:37:29] Well, I think I've told you quite a bit, but I'm hoping that Buena Vista University will last for many more years to come and grow over the years because they offer such a wide range of opportunities for students all across our great nation. They don't even re-- think-- students don't think in California, oh, I got to go to UCLA or something like that. Why can you come to rural Iowa and experience something you've never seen before and get the opportunities for an education that you might not be able to do on a larger campus? And there's a new program out, it's "See what we'll build", and
I hope that this university will build and build and build over the years. That my home [308 Grand] will last for a family in Alta, Iowa, because it was purchased and moved there and loved and lived in and that the green space where it once stood, maybe some-- something else put there or just remain a green space, which I would love. But nevertheless, I know where I grew up, and Storm Lake is my hometown.
Joan Curbow [00:39:17] Thank you very much.
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