If you majored in Hobo Day spirit here’s your exam
Dubbed the biggest one-day event in the Dakotas, Hobo Day has been part of the SDSU tradition since 1912.
In observation of the “100 Yeas of Hobo Day†celebration, STATE Magazine invites you to test your knowledge of Hobo Day and the traditions that have become synonymous with the late fall event that draws tens of thousands to Brookings.
The Bummobile:
1. What car did Moody County farmer Frank Weigel donate in 1938 to South Dakota State College to become the Bummobile?
Answer
The 1912 Model T Ford that he purchased new 26 years earlier.
2. Name the presidential candidate that got behind the wheel of the Bummobile for a photo op with Hobo Day Chair John Young?
Answer
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower made a campaign appearance Oct. 4, 1952, two weeks before Hobo Day. Eisenhower’s speech at Sylvan Green Theatre drew 12,000 people.
3. Why was the Bummobile taken to California for the better part of a year following the 2008 Hobo Day parade?
Answer
For a complete, $60,000 restoration funded by 1943 alumnus Harold C. Hohbach. Under the direction of his mechanic, Hohbach had the car completely restored, including new wooden framing, new wheels and tires, and a brass horn. Also, the engine was rebuilt, the rear end replaced, the brass kerosene side and rear lamps were replaced with identical parts, and the car was repainted. The restored Bummobile debuted in the Oct. 24, 2009, Hobo Day parade.
4. Driving the Bummobile requires some skills not used in driving modern vehicles. Who has been behind the wheel of the 1912 Model T since 2000?
Answer
Ed Bain Jr., an employee of the University Student Union.
5. In addition to the official 1912 Bummobile, students in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s drove their own stunt cars, “hobomobiles†in the parade. What was distinctive of them?
Answer
Using two-by-fours, students would haphazardly construct platforms on junk cars with the platforms carrying couches, old windmills, outhouses, and, of course, hobos.
Hobo Day through the years
6. What was the name of the event that preceded Hobo Day?
Answer
The Nightshirt Parade, which first occurred in November 1908.
7. South Dakota State wasn’t the first school to have a Hobo Day celebration. Name its predecessor.
Answer
The University of Missouri. R. Adams Dutcher, a 1907 graduate, had witnessed a Hobo Day celebration there and suggested that State students might want to try it. The next year, 1912, the nightshirt parade gave way to male students dressing as Hobos and females as Indian maidens.
8. Following the 1913 celebration, there was an attempt to replace the hobo focus of Hobo Day. What was proposed as a new name?
Answer
Dakota Day. Yes, the University of South Dakota later grabbed that name. Yankton College started Pioneer Day while Northern State Teacher’s College initiated Gypsy Day.
9. In the early years of Hobo celebrations, why did students journey to the railroad depot?
Answer
To greet the arrival of the opposing football team.
10. What was the Blue Key Smoker?
Answer
The event, begun in 1936, was held on the eve of Hobo Day and was sponsored by Blue Key, a national honor fraternity for senior men. It was a guys event, except for the cigarette girls, in which State men converged for bad cigars and worse jokes.
11. What was significant about Hobo Day 1942?
Answer
It was cancelled. With World War II underway, soldiers took over dormitory rooms and classes were cancelled for two weeks in late October so students could help with harvest or do other public service projects. The football program was disbanded for the last two years of the war. Northern State, the University of North Dakota, North Dakota Agriculture College and Jamestown College also closed for harvest.
12. Beginning in 1923, what were freshmen required to wear?
Answer
Green beanies
13. In the days when elaborate floats were a staple of the Hobo Day parade, what group was the perennial winner?
Answer
College of Pharmacy
14. What Hobo Week event was Hansen Hall known for?
Answer
Bed races. From the 1970s through the 1990s, students donned crazy costumes, put wheels on a bedframe, decorated it with crate paper and colorful handkerchiefs, and pushed it down Medary Avenue with a student aboard.
15. A black mark in Hobo Day history occurred in 1990. What happened?
Answer
The Hobo Day riot, in which drunken revelers got carried away two nights running, roaming the streets, setting several bonfires, and turning a TV station vehicle on its side.
16. What’s a pooba?
Answer
Spelled pooh-bah in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, it is defined as a person in high position or of great influence. It comes from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera “The Mikado” bearing the title Lord-High-Everything-Else.
17. Who was the first Hobo Day grand pooba?
Answer
Philip H. Von Fischer, in 1951
18. Who was the first female grand pooba?
Answer
Ann (Kratochvil) Holzhauser, in 1982
19. Who is the 2012 Grand Pooba?
Answer
Abby Settje, an advertising and graphic design major from Corona.
Miscellaneous
20. What year did Weary Wil first appear?
Answer
He appeared first as a mural caricature on a wall in the old Pugsley Union in 1941. Walt Conahan, of Sioux Falls, was the first Weary Wil in the flesh. In 1950, he arrived as Wil on the initial Western Airlines flight to the Brookings Airport. He boarded as a passenger in Brookings when it landed, flew to Pierre, changed into his Weary Wil get-up and flew back to the waiting crowd at Brookings Airport. Conahan was also the fourth Weary Wil (the first time he was a student), so he’s the only one to have been Weary Wil twice. He also was the only one to serve as a senator in the South Dakota Legislature.
21. What year did Dirty Lil first appear?
Answer
1980
22. What was the unusual mascot that accompanied a Hobo Day committee member in 1953?
Answer
Vance Sneve ’55 of Rapid City had the most unusual mascot when he was chairman. A bear cub followed him around. After Hobo Day, he and his date, his future wife Virginia Driving Hawk, the author, had bear chops with another couple on a date to the Martinson Tea House in Volga.
23. What was the one-month club?
Answer
A beard and pigtail contest. In 1956, beard prizes were awarded for reddest, blackest, blondest, longest, most handsome, most ticklish, and best try. Pigtails were awarded for shortest braided, longest, most, cutest, and best decorated.
