The gift of the 1947 Yackety Yak yearbook I received from my friend, Jimmy, pictured Andy Griffith as president of the Glee Club yet did not have a class portrait. This led to me looking at other years when Andy attended. As detailed last time, the 1945 yearbook which was published at the end of Andy’s freshman year also showed Andy as a member of the Glee Club. It did not contain traditional class portraits but did have photographs of all underclassmen shot around campus. However, Andy was not in any of those photos.
The 1946 yearbook would have covered Andy’s sophomore year which was when he switched majors from sociology to music. In that yearbook, the Glee Club photo shows a much larger group without the names listed. While it is hard to be completely sure, I believe Andy’s distinctive full head of hair is visible.
This was the first year Andy is listed as an officer of the club. As originally noted, he was president in the yearbook Jimmy sent me. This yearbook from the previous year shows he was working his way up to that position as he was vice-president during the 1945-1946 academic year.
By this time, Andy had also become involved with the Carolina Playmakers, a student theater group that staged several plays and musicals each year. He recalled that he was passing by the building that housed the group one night and, on a whim, signed up to audition for the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, The Gondoliers. He said at the time he did not even know who Gilbert and Sullivan were. He was cast and received good reviews for his solos in the show, which helped convince him to change his major to music.
However, yet again, Andy was not included in the class portrait section.
The 1948 Yackety Yack which follows the 1947 yearbook given to me and discussed earlier covered Andy’s fourth year at UNC. It did not include any distinguishable photos of Andy. If he was still involved in the Glee Club, it had grown so large that is is not possible to locate him in such a large group.
Once again, Andy was not in the class portrait section. That left only one last possible year to check.
Great job as usual, Randy! The first time I saw a picture of Andy as, Koko, I was a bit surprised. Isn’t it interesting that Andy’s photograph wasn’t with the rest of his classmates?