As I had the chance to look through the 1947 Yackety Yack in more detail, I was surprised to see that, while Andy’s portrait was included on the Glee Club page since he was president, his photo was not among the class photos. As mentioned last time, Andy changed majors during his sophomore year and ended up staying at the University of North Carolina an additional year, graduating in 1949. So during the 1946-1947 year, he could have still been considered a sophomore but more likely was a junior. Yet his photo was not in either one of those classes.
This aroused my curiosity. I reached out to Jim Clark to see if he had any idea why that would be, offering my theories that perhaps Andy was unable to afford it or simply was not interested. Jim did not know. I even reached out to Dixie Griffith, Andy’s daughter, but she did not know either.
I then decided to look at other years of The Yackety Yak. Andy said that when he first enrolled at UNC, even though he was a sociology major, he joined the glee club, band, and a choral society. Looking at the 1945 yearbook, Andy was clearly visible in the Glee Club photo which even included a listing of those in the photo. Andy is in the back row, second from the left.
The only band shown in the yearbook was the marching band. While I can not be sure, Andy was likely in that as well since he stated he joined the band. Andy had become proficient on trombone while still in Mount Airy and learned to play other brass instruments as well. There was no separate page dedicated to a choral group, but that could have been an informal group he joined.
The 1945 Yackety Yak did not include traditional class portraits for any class other than the seniors. Instead, all other classes were represented in numerous photos taken around campus, usually with 10 students in each photo. The names, hometowns, and class of each student pictured was listed alongside each photo. Freshman Andy was not among them in this instance, either.
As mentioned, I theorized there was more than one possible explanation. Perhaps Andy just did not care about being included in these photos and so did not bother to show up. After all, in the Glee Club photo in which he is pictured, 29 members along with the instructor are shown while 38 other club members were listed as “not in picture.” I also wondered whether a student perhaps had to pay to be included in a photo and Andy chose not to do so as he was not from a wealthy family or simply wanted to save his money or thought it could be better spent. This led me to look at the 1946 yearbook.
As an aside, I will add that there is one other interesting point to note in these yearbooks. It was a different time since the lead sponsor was Chesterfield Cigarettes urging the students to learn their A, B, Cs!
Great job on your research, my friend!