On a Monday morning in November of 1957, I, Bob Prall, was told, “Last night some Oregon State University Aggies used a chain saw to cut up our wooden “O” on Eugene’s Skinner’s Butte. They are going to burn it in their homecoming bonfire on Friday night.”
I was an officer in the Order of the “O,” and was asked, “What are you and the lettermen going to do to get even?” I decided to assemble a team of University of Oregon lettermen to kidnap their Homecoming Queen.
After I shared the idea with Bud Titus, a fraternity brother, we got our Dean of Men, Ray Hawk, to promise, “If you do not use any physical force, I will not kick you out of school.” Bud and I then drove up to their campus in Corvallis and determined where the Queen and two members of her court lived. When we learned there was nothing on their schedules after lunch on Friday, I looked up the phone numbers we needed, and we prepared maps for fast getaways…