Blackboards and chalk were so 1960

Today’s college students routinely carry laptop computers and smartphones.  But in 1961, high-tech teaching equipment used at La Crosse State included overhead projectors and reel-to-reel tape recorders.  Science professor Milford Cowley liked the projector, saying it saved time and labor compared to a chalkboard.  The campus newspaper had a photo of physical science instructor Kenneth Lindner, later a UW-L chancellor, setting up a recorder and projector to train other faculty members.

The Beta variety show was being held at the La Crosse campus for the 21st time.  By popular demand, Dave Stork was returning as emcee.  Stork had been a hit with the audience the previous year with what a reporter called “zany tactics and Scandinavian-accented anecdotes and jokes.”

“West Side Story” was the biggest hit movie of 1961, also winning the Oscar for best picture.  Number 2 at the box office was “The Guns of Navarone.”  Three Disney movies made the top 10…the original versions of “The Absent-Minded Professor,” “101 Dalmatians,” and “The Parent Trap” with Hayley Mills.  Fifty-seven years ago, 1961, yesterday in La Crosse.