| Street dances in Ross Square behind Samford Hall were a Saturday night fixture at Auburn during the summer in the early and mid-1940s. Auburn High School senior-to-be Gene Hurt and Hugh Williams, left, a first-quarter API freshman from Auburn, are shown cuttin' a rug en route to winning the jitterbug contest at this dance of August 4, 1945. Gene graduated from the University in 1950 and married attorney C.C. "Bo" Torbert, Jr., Class of '51, who became chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Hugh had a distinguished career as a professor of art and watercolor painter at Auburn after graduating in 1949. Music for the street dances usually was recorded, but Zombie Lauderdale's Auburn Collegians and vocalist LaHolme McClendon performed for this one. |
