Many great stories from Harding’s past have been told during chapel. Bible building namesake Jim Bill McInteer once shared how as a freshman in the 1940s he ran afoul of an entire dorm. He was washing up one Saturday morning and plugged his electric razor into an outlet. Suddenly, there was a “Pop!” and the lights went out. Soon, an angry mob stormed the hall. The outage had taken out the radio right before an important college football game.
“What’s going on?” he asked. The crowd shouted back, “We’re trying to find whoever shorted out the power before the game so we can kill him!”
Brother McInteer thought fast and said, “I’m in! Let’s get him!”
Dr. Clifton Ganus — Harding’s third president — could always be counted on to regale us in chapel with gems from Harding’s early days. After all, the school was only 15 years old when he came as a freshman in 1939. He spoke often about professor Benjamin Franklin Rhodes, for whom the Fieldhouse is half named. Rhodes was a brilliant teacher of history and Bible, but he was famously absent-minded.
Once he was headed to class, stopped in the middle of the front lawn and was heard by students to exclaim, “Oops! I forgot my teeth!” At which point he made a U-turn and rushed home. Still another time he had left the house, and Mrs. Rhodes discovered his pants hanging on a chair. Horrified that her spouse was half dressed, she ran after him. Fortunately, Ganus told us, he was wearing another pair.
Not surprisingly, some humor in chapel has come from student pranks. Obviously, I can’t encourage this sort of thing, but marbles have been let loose from the back of the auditorium to make their way down to the front. So have golf balls. So have mice. Alarms have been hidden under random seats. And, back when we had songbooks, one day they were all missing from their places among the seats. Only a few days later were they found stacked in a stall in the men’s bathroom. Piled on a board on top of the commode, they couldn’t be seen from the floor. And to discourage people from checking, the pranksters had placed a pair of pants and shoes under the board, as if the stall was occupied.
So many moments come to mind — some I saw and others I only heard about. Back in the day, Dr. Joe Pryor lost a bet and promised the students he would show up in chapel the next day without his signature bow tie (which he even wore while cutting grass, I’m told). The next day, he cracked up the room by walking onstage with one of those twelve-foot clown ties on.
Then there’s the day Dr. David Burks held his infant grandson in chapel and the kid spit up on the podium. Or the time Burks sang a duet with James Huff, who was the SA President that year. The best word to describe it is “memorable.”
Details are sketchy, but I’m told that one morning in chapel someone set up bowling pins on one end of the stage. On the other end, they put a faculty member — I heard it was beloved Bible professor Neale Pryor — on a skateboard. Then they pushed the skateboard toward the pins, hoping for a strike. If anybody knows how that turned out, please drop me a line.
Next time — my favorite funny chapel story.
Many great stories from Harding’s past have been told during chapel. Bible building namesake Jim Bill McInteer once shared how as a freshman in the 1940s he ran afoul of an entire dorm. He was washing up one Saturday morning and plugged his electric razor into an outlet. Suddenly, there was a “Pop!” and the lights went out. Soon, an angry mob stormed the hall. The outage had taken out the radio right before an important college football game.
“What’s going on?” he asked. The crowd shouted back, “We’re trying to find whoever shorted out the power before the game so we can kill him!”
Brother McInteer thought fast and said, “I’m in! Let’s get him!”
Dr. Clifton Ganus — Harding’s third president — could always be counted on to regale us in chapel with gems from Harding’s early days. After all, the school was only 15 years old when he came as a freshman in 1939. He spoke often about professor Benjamin Franklin Rhodes, for whom the Fieldhouse is half named. Rhodes was a brilliant teacher of history and Bible, but he was famously absent-minded.
Once he was headed to class, stopped in the middle of the front lawn and was heard by students to exclaim, “Oops! I forgot my teeth!” At which point he made a U-turn and rushed home. Still another time he had left the house, and Mrs. Rhodes discovered his pants hanging on a chair. Horrified that her spouse was half dressed, she ran after him. Fortunately, Ganus told us, he was wearing another pair.
Not surprisingly, some humor in chapel has come from student pranks. Obviously, I can’t encourage this sort of thing, but marbles have been let loose from the back of the auditorium to make their way down to the front. So have golf balls. So have mice. Alarms have been hidden under random seats. And, back when we had songbooks, one day they were all missing from their places among the seats. Only a few days later were they found stacked in a stall in the men’s bathroom. Piled on a board on top of the commode, they couldn’t be seen from the floor. And to discourage people from checking, the pranksters had placed a pair of pants and shoes under the board, as if the stall was occupied.
So many moments come to mind — some I saw and others I only heard about. Back in the day, Dr. Joe Pryor lost a bet and promised the students he would show up in chapel the next day without his signature bow tie (which he even wore while cutting grass, I’m told). The next day, he cracked up the room by walking onstage with one of those twelve-foot clown ties on.
Then there’s the day Dr. David Burks held his infant grandson in chapel and the kid spit up on the podium. Or the time Burks sang a duet with James Huff, who was the SA President that year. The best word to describe it is “memorable.”
Details are sketchy, but I’m told that one morning in chapel someone set up bowling pins on one end of the stage. On the other end, they put a faculty member — I heard it was beloved Bible professor Neale Pryor — on a skateboard. Then they pushed the skateboard toward the pins, hoping for a strike. If anybody knows how that turned out, please drop me a line.
Next time — my favorite funny chapel story.
Here are a few more comic moments from chapel over the years.
Many great stories from Harding’s past have been told during chapel. Bible building namesake Jim Bill McInteer once shared how as a freshman in the 1940s he ran afoul of an entire dorm. He was washing up one Saturday morning and plugged his electric razor into an outlet. Suddenly, there was a “Pop!” and the lights went out. Soon, an angry mob stormed the hall. The outage had taken out the radio right before an important college football game.
“What’s going on?” he asked. The crowd shouted back, “We’re trying to find whoever shorted out the power before the game so we can kill him!”
Brother McInteer thought fast and said, “I’m in! Let’s get him!”
Dr. Clifton Ganus — Harding’s third president — could always be counted on to regale us in chapel with gems from Harding’s early days. After all, the school was only 15 years old when he came as a freshman in 1939. He spoke often about professor Benjamin Franklin Rhodes, for whom the Fieldhouse is half named. Rhodes was a brilliant teacher of history and Bible, but he was famously absent-minded.
Once he was headed to class, stopped in the middle of the front lawn and was heard by students to exclaim, “Oops! I forgot my teeth!” At which point he made a U-turn and rushed home. Still another time he had left the house, and Mrs. Rhodes discovered his pants hanging on a chair. Horrified that her spouse was half dressed, she ran after him. Fortunately, Ganus told us, he was wearing another pair.
Not surprisingly, some humor in chapel has come from student pranks. Obviously, I can’t encourage this sort of thing, but marbles have been let loose from the back of the auditorium to make their way down to the front. So have golf balls. So have mice. Alarms have been hidden under random seats. And, back when we had songbooks, one day they were all missing from their places among the seats. Only a few days later were they found stacked in a stall in the men’s bathroom. Piled on a board on top of the commode, they couldn’t be seen from the floor. And to discourage people from checking, the pranksters had placed a pair of pants and shoes under the board, as if the stall was occupied.
So many moments come to mind — some I saw and others I only heard about. Back in the day, Dr. Joe Pryor lost a bet and promised the students he would show up in chapel the next day without his signature bow tie (which he even wore while cutting grass, I’m told). The next day, he cracked up the room by walking onstage with one of those twelve-foot clown ties on.
Then there’s the day Dr. David Burks held his infant grandson in chapel and the kid spit up on the podium. Or the time Burks sang a duet with James Huff, who was the SA President that year. The best word to describe it is “memorable.”
Details are sketchy, but I’m told that one morning in chapel someone set up bowling pins on one end of the stage. On the other end, they put a faculty member — I heard it was beloved Bible professor Neale Pryor — on a skateboard. Then they pushed the skateboard toward the pins, hoping for a strike. If anybody knows how that turned out, please drop me a line.
Next time — my favorite funny chapel story.
