I wasn't that into volunteering when I was in school. It was enough just to study and pass my classes. This is stretching my recollection, but let's give it a try.
Let's see. Do we include doing favors for the teacher? I remember carrying out blackboard erasers and clapping them together to get rid of most of the chalk. A little messy, but it got the job done (mostly).
Okay, I did volunteer to be a Traffic Safety. I wore a white harness with a belt that went around my waist and a strap that ran diagonally across my chest and back. I stood in the street, Grand Avenue, and stopped the cars so that a group of students could cross over from the school to go home (and posssibly to the candy store). Sounds dangerous for a kid, but traffic wasn't so bad back in those days. Life was a little more laid back.
My main extra-curricular activity was in the area of cartooning. I don't recall how it started, but my 11th grade English teacher, Mr. White, convinced me I could be the cartoonist for the school newspaper, The Golden Wave. Some of the panels made light of school activities (for instance, cafeteria food) and others were more serious (get out the vote). I remember one that played on the titles of popular songs of the day.
That seemed to work okay, and my cartoons even rated a mention in the school yearbook. In addition, during my senior year, our advisor urged me to draw some cartoons for that yearbook, the 1948 Nexus.
I saved copies of the school newspapers, but they are long gone now. However, I still have my copy of the yearbook, which I look at every once in a while.
Freshman-year engineering was intimidating enough that I wasn't looking for any other commitments that would take up my time. There was a school newspaper, and that was tempting, but I resisted.
That first year I hadn't affiliated with a fraternity, and I helped organize a group of the unaffiliated students, the Bucknell Independent Students Association. However, my leadership was limited to being captain of the softball team.
Later, after joining the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, I was TKE's representative on the Intramural Athletic Council, which set and enforced the rules for competition between the dozen or so fraternities on campus. Still later, I became treasurer of the council.
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Last Updated 2/1/11