by Bob Merriman
College yearbooks, like college newspapers, are often the product of a warped imagination. Warped in the sense that imagination is seldom used in the preparation. Any yearbook from any school could be mistaken for the yearbook of another school, and rightfully so.
The yearbook people at LSU decided that enough was enough and something should be done. Something was done.
The State Legislature passed a resolution of disapproval against the 1971 LSU yearbook. One legislator, who spoke against the teaching of Shakespeare several years ago, said, “I’ve never seen more nasty pictures. A student cannot show it (the yearbook) to his little brothers and sisters.”
What had the staff of the “Gumbo” done to arouse the ire of the Legislature? They printed a picture of a red-white-and-blue marijuana cigarette. They wrote several satirical articles on American sanctions such as motherhood. And to top it all off, they printed four pictures of nudes, taken in an art class.
Most yearbooks have the same pictures of the same faceless people, beauty queens with pimpless complexions and fixed posed smiles, male and female service clubs, who’s who’s, and numberless pictures of the more popular students.
The purpose behind the 1971 “Gumbo” was to present life on a big-time campus as it really is, not with the perennial bobby-sox and crewcut Mr. and Miss All-American Virtue. For this, they were blasted.