Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Disco Dan

Dan Herring was affectionately referred to as Disco Dan primarily because of a picture in an early '80s yearbook. As proctor of the study hall in the old Wallace Building (a distant memory now, where the dining hall now sits), there was a stage at one end where Mr. Herring sat at his desk lording over the study hall occupants. He ran a tight ship, and would simply hold his one finger up to keep order, the threat of demerits implicit. At the other end of the study hall room (which was an old basketball gym, I was told), were lockers. In the days of tape recorders, someone cleverly left the tape blank for 15 minutes, then from the tape recorder and one of the lockers came the music of the Bee Gees, Stayin' Alive, the ultimate disco song. Mr. Herring's finger instantly rose; we were all wide-eyed in disbelief and fear of guilt by association. After a minute or so, he rose, and walked off the stage toward the back to the lockers, but the perpetrator had intentionally cut off the timing of the recording of the song so that the tape recorder stopped and there was no way to identify the offending locker. Mr. Herring turned and simply said, "one of these days", while holding up his finger.  

submitted by Brooks Smith '89

Blog Archive