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History of hijinks
A new microsite celebrates Herman Bubbert and the prank tradition at Bethel
by Melanie Zuercher
Herman Bubbert may or may not have first set foot on the Bethel campus as a student around 50 years ago. He may or may not have actually graduated from Bethel and may or may not have an advanced degree or two. He may or may not have once died and risen from the dead.
Whatever his exact history, the elusive figure most consistently associated with pranks at Bethel nevertheless is not as old as the history of such extracurricular activity on campus.
As Bethel moves toward celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2012, a renewed interest in Bethel history over the past several years has also resulted in a fresh look at the history of pranks. That led to discussion in the advancement, alumni and institutional communications offices about creating a microsite - a website devoted to one topic.
On the program for this year's Fall Festival "fair day" Oct. 8 was "Thank you, Herman Bubbert - a celebration of pranks at Bethel College." And that was the impetus, says Vice President for Marketing and Communications Lori L. Livengood, for finally launching cowsinthelibrary.com, the new microsite. It went live Sept. 24.
The site has stories, with photos where possible, of pranks that have been documented in some way. And it's highly interactive, inviting readers to submit comments, vote on their favorite items and send in more Bethel prank stories.
There are photos of pranks from nearly a century ago (as early as 1914), and a recently submitted story of a prank involving Ron Rich, professor of mathematics, from the early 1950s.
Herman Bubbert's first known appearance on the Bethel campus seems to have been sometime in 1960, according to the Diggers Oral History Group who, in 1975, collectively wrote "The Hermeneutics of Herman Bubbert" for a Keith Sprunger history class. The paper's editors - Class of 1978 members Dan Flickinger, Jim Harder and Linda Shelly - called it "the first comprehensive biography of Herman Bubbert."
Monte Zerger '66, a mathematics graduate, is thought to have had a major hand in bringing this new student to campus.
In fact, Arnold Wedel '47, professor emeritus of mathematics, claims: "Monte was responsible for everything. In the early '60s, [he] started talking about Herman Bubbert - it might have even been going on before I knew about it."
Monte, for his part, told the Diggers that though he may have introduced the idea of Herman Bubbert, Ken Goering '60 "mythologized it - took the concept, gave it life and got people started using it."
Herman Bubbert was registered for classes in 1960. Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Richard Rempel '63 remembers that "in one class I took, his name was on the roster. When the professor would call his name, someone would always say 'Here.' I don't know if the professor ever figured out that there wasn't actually a Herman Bubbert in the class."
In 1962, Bethel professor J. Lloyd Spaulding announced that the student council had chosen Herman Bubbert to be the exchange student to Wuppertal, Germany, for the following year (Dr. Spaulding was in on the joke).
Because of his roots in the mathematics department, Herman Bubbert was considered to be a mathematician by occupation. In fact, many of the things he did had a mathematical connection. For example, he is reported to have donated $13.19 to the math department for their 1973 symposium - reflecting his mathematical inclinations, since 13 and 19 are prime numbers.
He is said to have died in 1970 and been buried on campus, the grave marked with a headstone on the south side of the path between Haury Hall and Warkentin Court. However, later reappearances proved either he had never died or that he was "resurrected."
In 1972, two years after his supposed death, Herman gave a recital in the Administration Building chapel, which constitutes Richard's "favorite Herman Bubbert memory."
"I got a fancy invitation saying to come to the northwest door of the Ad Building. I was ushered upstairs to the [chapel] balcony. All the windows were open. There was a different set of chimes next door [in Memorial Hall] back then, and the concert consisted of loud rock music - until the police showed up and somehow got it to stop." Richard also recalls having tea and crumpets following the recital.
By 1978, Herman Bubbert had gained enough attention that the Schulz Student Center snack bar was named "Bubbert's" (now the home of Mojo's Coffee). Currently, the spring student film fest gives out the Bubbert Awards.
In 2009, college officials received a letter on Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary letterhead over the signature of then-AMBS president J. Nelson Kraybill, reporting that when AMBS had celebrated its 50th birthday in 2008, a student file for Herman Bubbert had surfaced in the Mennonite Biblical Seminary records. Apparently, he had graduated from MBS in 1957. A copy of his diploma revealed his degree as a Masters of Theology: Homiletics, Hermeneutics and Prophecy.
The letter (the diploma, too) turned out to be a prank. Though known for his pranks as a Goshen (Ind.) College student, Nelson Kraybill was likely innocent in this one.
Dale Schrag '69, director of church relations and campus pastor, continues to get e-mail from Herman Bubbert.
"I'm honored that Herman communicates with me on occasion," Dale says. "I'm the only one I know of that still gets regular communication from [him]."
Dale thinks that's because when he was director of libraries at Bethel, from 1984-92, there was a "big upsurge in pranks," several of the best at his expense. He says he never made much fuss about it - except for one that was poorly timed at the beginning of January interterm.
Dale credits a group of students, many of them math majors, from that time period with Bethel's "rules for pranks."
Rule No. 1, you can't use a key to get into any building, related to Rule No. 2, that the prank must be creative. "If it's been done before, it can't be done again," Dale says. "Soap in the fountain? Verboten - it's been done."
Rule No. 3 is that the prank must be in good taste and No. 4 is that the prank can't damage property, or at least must make all efforts not to. A caveat added after the library door-blocking incident at the start of interterm was not to pull a prank at a busy time.
Finally, Dale says, Rule No. 5 is to involve as few people as possible in order to minimize chances of getting caught. There's a sixth, more recent, rule - "Help clean up after the prank" - but Dale says he isn't sure about that one since it seems to overturn the purpose of Rule No. 5.
"Pranks have always been a part of the culture at Bethel College," Dale observes, "but I thought it was endemic to any small college campus."
While that may be true, not all colleges have an elusive perpetual student who takes credit or gets blame for a healthy share of the hijinks.
However, Herman Bubbert actually wasn't associated with the eponymous cow in the library prank. Dale has been telling that story to the freshman class for at least the past two decades.
Although he was not involved (this took place in the early '60s, before he was a Bethel student), Dale has intimate knowledge of how the prank was planned and carried out, thanks to the key role his late brother-in-law, Werner Fransen '64, played.
Werner was "one of about six guys" - who, Dale says, included "the cream of the crop" then at Bethel, among them the student body president and the college newspaper editor - who perpetrated the prank.
"It was carefully planned. They used only fake names or numbers to refer to each other so that anyone who overheard wouldn't catch on. Two of them hid out in the library in a furnace room or janitor's closet - I know there were two, because they passed the time by playing cards - so they could let the others in."
The cow came from the dairy farm Bethel ran just north of the main campus. The students led the very tame animal over to the library but she had no intention of going up the steps. According to Dale, four students each took a leg and physically lifted the cow into the library, whereupon she slipped on the freshly washed linoleum, fell flat and once back on her feet "began to do what cows normally do when they're upset."
At one point, she backed into a wall and left a large stain that "Werner claimed he could still see 25 years later," Dale says.
Eventually, they took all the furniture except the phone out of librarian Leona Krehbiel's '26 office, got hay from the barn and bedded the cow down. They cleaned everything up, including themselves, so well and carefully that no one ever knew who was responsible until many years later when Werner finally confessed to then Dean of Students Esko Loewen '41, Dale says.
Since that time, there have been other reports of animals - cows, goats, chickens, a horse - in the library and elsewhere on campus, but no good documentation exists (at least not yet) for any but the original.
As the years go by, more information surfaces about both pranks and Herman Bubbert. The Fall Festival program yielded additional details about some of the betterknown pranks from the past - such as the provenance of the sparrows that flew out from under the coffee cups laid out for breakfast in the dining hall - to be added to cowsinthelibrary.com along with many others, or such is the hope.
"The site is an interactive way for alumni and current students to reminisce about the fun they've had at Bethel," Lori Livengood says, "while also showing prospective students a piece of what it's like to be part of the Bethel community."
In fact, pranks may help build community at Bethel. "[A successful prank] gives diverse elements a common focus," Dale says. "For a short time at least, everyone is laughing at, and talking about, and trying to figure out who did, the same thing."