San Diego State College Homecoming 1960

"3 Coins in the Fountain" Float


(Photos by Bob Richardson '61)






Your post of the 1953 San Diego State Homecoming Parade inspired me to scan a negative from the Fall of 1960. I've never seen it before except as a contact proof. The float is "3 Coins in the Fountain." I don't know what the theme was that year. On zooming in I am just about certain the girl sitting on the wall on the left edge of the photo is Valerie Ziegenfuss. I've cropped that part and enlarged it, so she (or others) can decide. I had no idea!  My crop extends on the right to one of the weird and spooky doors in the river cobble wall. As kids playing around there we were a bit afraid of what might be inside, although maybe it was only football stuff.  In the early ‘50s the floats were really primitive. They were built around junker car chassis, which often broke down. How they got them down the steep, windy road to the field -- unpaved in the early ‘50s -- was improbable, and getting them back out even more so.  In the early ‘50s , when nothing was built yet west of Aztec Bowl -- no Remington Road, for example -- after homecoming some of the floats were driven west on a dirt track and abandoned -- Bob Richardson ’61

I think friend Bob is right about that being Valerie -- Jim Schrupp '61

That’s definitely Val -- Candy Willison O’Rear ’67

                           



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