A student activist group wasn’t welcome on a local campus, 52 years ago

In December of 1966, La Crosse State president Sam Gates decided not to give a charter to the SDS…Students for a Democratic Society.  The FBI was suspicious of the group, with J. Edgar Hoover saying it was part of the ‘new left.’  The American Legion and a local group of World War One veterans announced they would support the decision by Gates.   

The last of the two-man Gemini flights around the earth took place late in ’66.  Flying aboard Gemini 12 would be Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, and Jim Lovell, who would fly around the moon on two Apollo missions.   

The NBC TV station in Eau Claire, WEAU, was building a big transmission tower, 2000 feet tall.  It would be twice the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  On Thursday nights that December, TV watchers could see Star Trek and Daniel Boone…My Three Sons…Batman, and F-Troop.  And that December, CBS showed a new holiday cartoon for the first time: ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas,’ starring Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch.  In 1966, yesterday in La Crosse.