Hofstra Yearbook 1971

With virtually no staff in place for the Nexus 1971, my co-editor-in-chief Arnie set out to fill the gaps. As new section editors started showing up in the office, it took me a little while to figure out how he was recruiting them.

He was picking up women in his classes, using the line, "Would you like to be a yearbook editor?" Jackie, Diane, Leslie, Gail, Karen, Donna, et al. Each of them shared one class or another with my co-editor. So on the afternoon that Laurie walked in and announced, "Hi, I'm the new Student Life editor!" my response was, "Which of Arnie's classes are you in?" (Jewelry Making, if I remember correctly.)

To be fair, Arnie did not recruit only women for the editorial positions. Jean had been one of our photographers the previous year and he was promoted to Photo Editor. And when it looked like I was going to have to be sports section editor again (because, apparently, Arnie was unable to pick up any athletics-minded women), he agreed to give the post to Stephan, who had taken virtually all the photos for the section.

But there was a lot of estrogen floating around the yearbook office that year, especially as Arnie did his best to promote staff unity by having regular meetings and staff parties. He also managed to date more than a couple of them, even getting engaged to one before the year was out. (The engagement did not last, however.)

We had frequent visits from Dick, who worked for Taylor Publishing, the company that printed the yearbooks, and from Aaron and Bernie, who ran the photography studio that took all the senior portraits and processed the pictures our staff photographers took. Yet, despite all these meetings, when the end of the spring semester rolled around, everybody was scrambling to get their sections done.

But the book did eventually get finished. Arnie graduated and I took over as sole editor-in-chief, with almost all of the editors he'd recruited remaining on staff.

As for Arnie's ploy of recruiting editors in order to find romance, well, that did actually work out for him. After his lone date with Laurie -- at a 13-inning Mets game on an incredibly humid night -- she introduced him to her best friend from high school. A year later, Arnie and Carol got married.