Centrepiece Online | Fall 2011

Lessons Learned

by R. A. “Max” Mascarich ’62

A transplanted New Yorker reflects on five decades of Centre connections

It’ll be another year before the Class of ’62 celebrates its 50th reunion, but as a member of this suddenly austere and sober group, the fall of ’08 really marked my 50th and the beginning of some of the most memorable and formative events of a lifetime.

September 1958 found a 17-year-old kid from Long Island, N.Y., arriving for the first time in Danville via the “Big Grey Dog” at the bus stop in front of the Huntwood Terrace Motel on Main Street. He continued on foot toward the Centre campus with a hand-me-down two-suiter, three-speed record player, and a collection of jazz vinyls to the ultimate destination of the day, the reception for incoming freshmen hosted by the College at the home of Centre’s new president, Dr. Thomas A. Spragens. Halfway there, the weight of his burdens forced a stop at the local poolroom for rest and refreshments, a familiar fried bologna sandwich and the new uniquely Southern experience of an RC Cola and a Moon Pie. He had arrived.

Stopping at Breck Hall to unload in my assigned third-floor room, I made the first of what would become hundreds of Centre connections: a congenial guy from Ashland, Ky., who I’m sure thought he’d drawn the short straw in roommates. There was I in my West Side Story French toes and black pegged pants, while he was in “buckle in the back” khakis and Bass moccasins, which I was convinced was evidence of a congenital foot defect shared by a majority of Centre men from Kentucky. We shared the same monogram (RAM), but that was about the only commonality apparent on that first day. How could we coexist when I was all jazz and Miles Davis and he all country and the Everly brothers?

But we did more than coexist. We learned from each other. He introduced me to the Kingston Trio, and I reciprocated with Errol Garner. Somewhere in between, with the help of another classmate from Florida, we found common ground in Jimmy Reed’s guitar and harmonica.

The Centre experience between 1958 and 1962 was rich and full of changes. As mentioned above, we came in with Tom Spragens. That first year was also [dean of men] Max Cavnes’ first year as enforcer of campus morality. I acted a “lean and hungry” Cassius with Dr. Paul Cantrell in Dr. West Hill’s production of Julius Caesar. During our time, fraternities made the move from individual houses scattered around Danville to the blandness of a new quadrangle that replaced the World War II-era buildings behind Breck Hall housing an infirmary and quarters for married students. Joe Brummet ’50 coached football, basketball, and track. In the beginning, dilapidated busses ferried students across town between the men’s campus and the women’s at K.C.W. [women’s department housed at the old Kentucky College for Women campus], and C.C. coeds had strict curfews. Then K.C.W. was closed, and the women moved to new dorms on the main campus. Cowan opened and refined most men’s table manners with coed dining. Danville High School ceased to operate on the site of what is now the Norton Center and Boles Natatorium. The old Hangout was replaced by a basement room in the refurbished but somewhat antiseptic Sutcliffe Hall.

The other RAM and I both graduated as chemistry majors after surviving the trauma of the passing of department head Dr. Richard Rush in the middle of organic chemistry. We were enlightened by Dr. John Walkup’s comparisons of life, making love, and relationships to the third law of thermodynamics in physical chemistry. We mourned the passing of Dr. Alden Vaughn, whose humanities class gave to all the potential to become certain Jeopardy champs for years to come.

By graduation, my time at Centre had convinced me that the Big Apple of my youth was not the be all and end all I thought it was when disembarking that Greyhound at the Huntwood. Kentucky was the place for me to set down my roots and raise my family (one of whom followed me to Centre). Centre connections made along the way have advanced my career, augmented my family’s social life, and continue to be primary forces in my life today.

Centre Connections: we’re not exactly a “mafia,” but darn close when you think about it.

R.A. “Max” Mascarich ’62 has remained in Kentucky since arriving in the fall of 1958. He retired as a petrochemical engineer and international operations manager at United Catalysts (now Sud-Chemie Inc.) and served the U.S. Commerce Department as chair of the Kentucky District Export Council. His closest Centre connections are his son John Mascarich ’98, half-sister Kirsten Allen Culler ’71, and sister-in-law Eleanor Todd Chenault ’61.