The Great Ice Cream Heist at Whitman College
Alumni graduation banquet turns into a local scandal when undergrads hijack the dessert.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Class day exercises at Whitman were a great success. They were held near the conservatory. Wade, president of the class, impersonated President Penrose, and commencement was gone through with in mock style. The alumni banquet Tuesday night at Reynolds hall was a fine spread, only it was short on ice cream. This was not the fault of those who had the banquet in charge but of some naughty undergraduates who 'swiped' the freezer while the old grads were busy eating. When it came time for dessert it was discovered that the cream had vanished. A diligent search failed to locate it and so the members of the alumni were forced to content themselves with the memory of how it used to taste when they were the takers instead of the taken in the good old days. It is rumored that a member of the faculty even joined the wicked undergraduates at their feast.
“When it came time for dessert it was discovered that the cream had vanished.”
Campus high jinks remain a staple of college life, though modern student protests or 'pranks' rarely involve the organized theft of dessert from university officials. This incident highlights the long-standing, often playful tension between 'old grads' and the current student body at Walla Walla's oldest institution.
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