Growing up with the Student Union by Cheryl Hesser Lee

Some people got to visit the Union when they toured OSU or attended college in Stillwater.

I however, got to grow up with it, you see, my dad was the Student Union Director from the earliest I can remember and until I finally grew up and left Stillwater in 1969.

Memories are amazing for me because they include wonderful people that crossed my path because of the Union being a meeting place and training center for hotel and restaurant students.

I was lucky to be "adopted" by all the staff from the time I was 5 years on. Mrs. Mac would always make sure there was raspberry sherbet in the Coffee Shop for me after school.

Winsel Bilyeu let me pretend to be a real telephone operator on the hotel desk switchboard that originally had plugs with cords like you see in old movies.

Lena Potts taught me to make roses from ribbon to use as bows in the Student Store and helped me learn how to refill the card racks and print napkins for weddings and receptions in the Union lounges.

Bill Varney helped me get my girl scout babysitting badge with his five little daughters.

Craig Hampton made a cheerleader jacket for me that matched the leather ones he made for the OSU team.

Don Campbell would come take me to get ice cream on his bike handle.

Baker Bokomey made sure there was red earth cake left over for me.

Bruce Snyder made us feel like royalty at the 21 Club in New York whenever we visited.

Watching the famous acts in the ballroom from my special vantage point on 3rd floor where there was a booth with glass to let me sit and see acts like, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tony Bennett, The Four Lads, and many many more.

Or the chance to meet people like Emporer Haile Selassie and President Truman,

I worked from the time I was 10 years old. At first, for free helping in the student store with gift wrapping or the cafeteria as a baby pusher on Sundays when all of Stillwater came to the Union after church for fried chicken lunch.

My first paying job was actually for 25cents an hour helping fold laundry in the basement for banquets. Then I graduated to working on the cafeteria food line, then to banquet service, then to information desk clerk, and eventually to any job that anyone else didn't show up to do -since I was lucky enough to live with the Director and easy to find as a fill in.

My piano practice was in the ballroom on the grand piano. We didn't have a piano at home and I would walk up after school and practice.

The union had incredible celebrations in the ballroom for conventions, etc. After spending a summer in Hawaii going to summer school, I returned to become the hula girl for the luaus held in the ballroom.

Those of you who never experienced an event in the ballroom, where 100 young women marched in wearing starched uniforms, with all their seams of their stockings in perfect line -have missed out. We laugh at my high school luncheons about the 4 of us who meet and eat now and were working in jr. high serving banquets. OH< those rolls were soooo good and we would sneak them into our pockets as we left, thinking no one the wiser -well, that big old grease spot was a dead give away.

I wouldn't trade anything for the time I spent growing up in the union or the people who have crossed my path as a result. My entire life has been changed forever by those fine folks.

"I'll meet you at the union" definitely left a mark on my heart!.

In memory of my mom and dad, Abe and Polly Hesser and the students and staff they enjoyed knowing at OSD.

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