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photo to prove it – she is fully clothed, but six co-workers are“ mooning” the crowd in unison.
BRAS AND GERMAN SHEPHERDS
Potts said labeling most of the unclothed participants as“ streakers” was a misnomer. With thousands packed together on the street, there was little room to sprint.
“ It was orderly chaos. When someone got ready to streak, everyone in the crowd would slowly back off and make room for them,” Potts said.
Jimmy Bloyed, an OSU senior assigned by the Stillwater News Press to photograph the event, said there were plenty of unique snapshots available, but the best were not
Jimmy Bloyed, an OSU senior assigned by the Stillwater News Press to photograph the event, said there were plenty of unique snapshots available, but the best were not appropriate for a family-friendly newspaper.
appropriate for a familyfriendly newspaper.
Bloyed, now of Tulsa, said one of his most memorable images was two women strolling in the middle of The Strip with their two German Shepherds on their leashes, an otherwise placid scene – except the women wore only bras and no other garments except bandanas on their faces to obscure their identity.
“ That is hard to forget,” even 50 years later, Bloyed said.
Dr. Cheryl Marrs of Tulsa, an OSU freshman at the first Streakers Night, estimated there were scores of naked men and women, including two of her former Spiro High School male classmates who were on campus. They could not persuade her to join them.
Marrs recalls being amused when a top-down convertible slowly navigated down The Strip with a naked young man sitting high in the back seat, waving to the enthusiastic crowd as if he were royalty in a homecoming parade.
“ I recognized him from my geography class,” she laughed.“ The next time we were in class, I leaned over
( from my desk) and told him,‘ I saw you last week. ' He didn’ t say a word.”
Peters, the historian, said from the first time at Streakers Night, it was as if OSU students were given a one-night“ hall pass” by the usually buttoned-down university leadership and local law officers – some bad behavior was permitted, as long as it remained safe and within the barricades.
Peters confessed to his own mischief. From his apartment window on North Washington, he saw two men disrobe, leave their clothes in an alley, and dart naked into the crowd. To their dismay, the nude duo returned to find their clothes were missing. Peters – the quiet culprit – said the men were angered but relieved when he called out to them from an upstairs window, a safe distance, and tossed their clothes down.
AND THERE WAS THE BULL
By the late 1970s, the most indelible image emerging from Streakers Night was not naked bodies. Those were increasingly scarce and even fewer women took the risk. Now, the most iconic image was a Polled Hereford.
Known as the Sirloin Stockade bull, the brownand-white fiberglass bovine replica stood about 12 feet tall on a mobile trailer outside the steakhouse. From the first Streakers Night, the bull proved too much of a temptation. Rogue students rolled it north on Washington Street about three blocks, turned west, and tipped it into Theta Pond.“ It drowned,” the Stillwater News Press quipped. The bull always had escorts. About six people – some clothed, some not – were always hoisted on its back for the ride. Meanwhile, hundreds of frolicking students danced and followed the bull, forming what one witness compared to a massive Tongan line.
RuthAnn Sirbaugh of Stillwater, as a sophomore at OSU in 1979, may have the distinction of being the last person to ride the bull on Streakers Night – fully clothed, she stressed. She recalls being among about six people on its back but remained as the lone rider as it tipped toward Theta Pond. Sirbaugh noticed campus police seemed poised to nab her as she approached the water, so she dove into the dark pool and swam out of sight to the edge.
“ What I remember most is how awful I smelled. That pond water was rancid,” Sirbaugh said.
Sirloin Stockade’ s then-owner John Shiflet of Stillwater recalls the first time the students kidnapped the bull“ there was no getting it back” until it was retrieved from Theta
STILLWATER OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE / 19