1970

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1970 in Clemson History

The Class of 1970

Notable Alumni

Events in 1970

  • Byrnes Hall is completed on East Campus.
  • The College of Liberal Arts is established, headed by Dean H. Morris Cox.
  • In Anderson, South Carolina, Girls' High School, located at the corner of Greenville and McDuffie Streets, is razed. The Anderson County Library now occupies the site.
  • January: The Lila Doyle Chronic Hospital in Seneca is re-licensed as a Nursing Care Facility, providing skilled nursing care. ("The Heritage of Oconee County, Vol. 1, 1868-1995, The Blue Ridge Arts Council, Seneca, South Carolina, 1995, Library of Congress card number 95-61417, page 24.)
  • January 26: The Lynch Drug Company on College Avenue is destroyed by an early morning fire, apparently caused by lightning running in on an electrical line during a violent thunderstorm. The blaze was discovered by a passer-by about 5 a.m. Owner Tom Lynch reported that the contents of the building were a total loss, with damages estimated at $165,000. Prescriptions will continue to be filled from a trailer next to the store and Lynch stated that "I hope to be back in full operation within six weeks." (Garrett, Gerald, "Lynch Drug Company Hit By $165,000 Fire", The Tiger, Friday 30 January 1970, Volume LXIII, Number 17, page 1.)
  • February 1: Eta Alpha chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha colonized at Clemson University.
  • February 11: Clemson basketball coach Bobby Roberts submits his resignation to athletic director Frank Howard, effective at the end of the season. At the time of his resignation, he had accumulated a 81-110 overall record, and is 6-13 in the current season. (Rhodes, Bill, "Roberts Quits As Basketball Coach", The Tiger, Friday 13 February 1970, Volume LXIII, Number 19, page 1.)
  • March 7: South Carolina Gamma Chapter of Phi Delta Theta colonized at Clemson University. Progressive rock group Renaissance appears in the Amphitheatre, 3 p.m.-4:30 p.m., free admission.
  • March 9: James Weldon Johnson's Trumpets of the Lord, a musical adaptation by Vinnette Carroll of God's Trombones, is presented in Littlejohn Coliseum at 8 p.m. Directed by Donald McKayle, musical direction by Howard Roberts.
  • March 18: Tates Locke is hired as new basketball coach. The Batesville, Indiana native's hiring by Clemson is announced by Athletic Director Frank Howard at a press conference held in the Clemson House. Locke will be let go in March 1975 after a troubled tenure.
  • March 25: Dean of Admissions and Registrations Kenneth N. Vickery announces that Saturday classes for undergraduate students will be abolished next semester. (The Tiger, "Saturday Classes End", Friday 27 March 1970, Volume LXIII, Number 24, page 1.)
  • April: The R. L. Bryan Company in Columbia refuses to print The Chronicle's Spring 1970 issue, Vol. X, No. 11, over objections to an "obscene" passage in the text.
  • April 11: The Numeral Society, founded in 1956 by architecture professor Joseph L. Young, accepts charter from Sigma Alpha Epsilon national fraternity and changes its name.
  • May 4: The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent State massacre, occur at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by members of the Ohio Army National Guard. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Incursion / American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. However, other students who were shot had merely been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance. Photographs of the dead and wounded at Kent State that were distributed in newspapers and periodicals worldwide amplified sentiment against the United States' invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War in general. In particular, the camera of Kent State photojournalism student John Filo captured a fourteen-year old runaway, Mary Ann Vecchio, screaming over the body of the dead student, Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot in the mouth. The photograph, which won a Pulitzer Prize, became the most enduring image of the events, and one of the most enduring images of the anti--violent demonstrations. Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense, which was generally accepted by the criminal justice system. In 1974 U.S. District Judge Frank Battisti dismissed charges against all eight on the basis that the prosecution's case was too weak to warrant a trial.
  • May 14-May 15: The Jackson State killings occur on Thursday/Friday, May 14-15, at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi. A group of student protesters were confronted by city and state police. The police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.(Review of "Lynch Street: The May 1970 Slayings at Jackson State College" (Tim Spofford) Review author: William M. Simpson The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 56, No. 1. (Feb., 1990), pp. 159-160. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4642%28199002%2956%3A1%3C159%3ALSTM1S%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L) This happened 10 days after National Guardsmen killed four students in similar protests at Kent State University in Ohio, which first captured national attention.
A group of around a hundred African-American students had gathered on Lynch Street (which at the time bisected the campus) on the evening of Thursday, May 14. By around 9:30 p.m. the students had started fires and overturned vehicles, including a large truck. Firefighters dispatched to the scene quickly requested police support. The police responded in force. At least 75 Jackson Mississippi Police units from the city of Jackson and the Mississippi Highway Patrol attempted to control the crowd while the firemen extinguished the fires. After the firefighters had left the scene, shortly before midnight, the police moved to disperse the crowd now gathered in front of Alexander Hall, a women's on-campus dormitory.
Advancing to within 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 m) of the crowd, at roughly 12:05 a.m., police opened fire. The exact cause of the shooting and the moments leading up to it are unclear. Authorities claim they saw a sniper on one of the building's upper floors, and were also being sniped in all directions, while the students say police fired for no reason. The crowd scattered and a number of people were trampled or cut by falling glass. Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior, and James Earl Green, 17, a student at nearby Jim Hill High School, were killed and twelve others were wounded. Gibbs was killed near Alexander Hall by buckshot, while Green was killed behind the police line in front of B. F. Roberts Hall, also with a shotgun.
The President's Commission on Campus Unrest investigated this event and also held public hearings at Kent State, in Los Angeles, and Washington. There were no arrests in connection with the deaths at Jackson State.
  • July 4: Syndicated radio show "American Top 40", hosted by Casey Kasem, debuts.
  • July 21: Clemson Head Coach Hootie Ingram unveils the Tiger Paw as the new logo for Tiger sports teams at a press conference.
  • August: Eight women musicians join the ranks of the players in Tiger Band for the first time. Prior to this, the only females in the marching band were majorettes. (Reel, Jerome V., Jr., "Women & Clemson University: Excellence - Yesterday and Today", Clemson University Digital Press, 2006, ISBN 0-9771263-6-6, page 36.)
  • August 17: The old Seneca High School on North Fairplay Street burns.
  • September 2: Walter Cox, dean of Student Affairs, reveals that 7,200 copies of the Spring 1970 issue of The Chronicle have been destroyed for having "obscene" content.
  • September 11: Central Dance Association sponsors the Rat Hop in Harcombe Commons with Jr. Walker and the All-Stars, $2.50 in advance, $3 at the door, dress is coat and tie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI7CtxlisCk
  • September 12: New Coach Hootie Ingram decides to have the football team enter the field from the dressing rooms in the west endzone of Memorial Stadium prior to the game, and the Tigers will not run down the hill again until the USC game on November 25, 1972. Clemson blanks the Citadel in home opener, 24-0. B. J. Thomas and the Peace Corps perform in Littlejohn Coliseum, admission is $3, dress is casual. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSSF76Ay3dY&feature=related
  • September 18: Jimi Hendrix, widely considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in music history, and one of the most influential musicians of his era, dies in London early in the morning, asphyxiated on his own vomit. He was 27.
  • September 19: The Tigers defeat Virginia, 27-17, in Death Valley.
  • September 26: Clemson travels to Georgia, loses, 0-38.
  • October: The Clemson Aero Club fights with Reid Garrison, FBO operator at the Clemson-Oconee Airport, for access to the field.
  • October 4: Janis Joplin, blues singer, known as the "Queen of Rock and Roll" as well as "The Queen of Psychedelic Soul", dies at the Landmark Hotel in Los Angeles from an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. She was 27.
  • Fall: The Pendleton Historic District is placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It contains approximately 6,316 acres, including the entire Town of Pendleton and extends out of Anderson County into a corner of Pickens County. ("Historic Pendleton", Pendleton District Historical and Recreational Commission, undated softback brochure.)
  • October 2: A chartered Martin 4-0-4 twin-prop airliner, N464M, c/n 14151, operated by Golden Eagle Aviation, crashes just over ten miles from Silver Plume, Colorado, killing 30 of those on board including the coach and 13 members of the Wichita State football team, en route to play Utah State. Cause was controlled flight into terrain due to poor flight planning.
  • October 3: The Tigers are defeated by fifteenth-ranked Georgia Tech, 7-28, in Atlanta.
  • October 5: Two students busted for simple possession of marijuana. A 21 year old senior dies in his dormitory (Johnstone Hall) by self inflicted gunshot wound in a suicide case that is reported in The Tiger.
  • October 9: To launch Homecoming weekend, Central Dance Association offers up the Ike And Tina Turner Review, with opening act Willie Tee and the Hot Rain at a casual dress concert in Littlejohn Coliseum. Admission is $3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipOz_k9zvzo
  • October 10: "Cousin Clem" gets spanked by "Aubie the Tiger" as the Clemson faithful see their Associated Press ninth-ranked Auburn brethren walk off with a 0-44 shutout. That night, CDA presents Rhythm and Blues Meister Jerry Butler, with opening act Quicksand, in Fike Field House, coat and tie dress code, tickets are $2.50 in advance, $3 at the door. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grr4GYgs5c4
  • October 14: The University Concert Series presents Ciro, one of Spain's foremost dancers, in Littlejohn Coliseum.
  • Mid-October: L. L. Wilson takes over as the new chief of police for the City of Clemson.
  • October 15: Some 250 students rally in the Loggia calling for abolishment of the student dress code.
  • October 17: Clemson plays Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, losing, 20-36.
  • October 24: The Tigers are defeated by Duke in Memorial Stadium, 10-21. Central Dance Association presents Three Dog Night in Littlejohn Coliseum, tickets are $4 in advance, $5 at the door. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaQzQAlNn4
  • October 25: A concert by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition is not held when the band cancels out.
  • October 26: The Student Senate passes a resolution calling for students to be allowed "freedom of expression in his manner of dress as defined by his constitutional rights under the constitution" although "students should comply with departmental requirements of safety."
  • October 31: The Tigers defeat the Maryland Terrapins, 24-11, in College Park.
  • Fall: Masters degree programs added in Forestry, Agriculture, and Engineering, supplementing masters of science degrees in those areas.
  • November: A new canteen opens in the basement of Lever Hall.
  • November 7: Florida State defeats Clemson, 13-38, in a night game in Tallahassee.
  • November 11: Students are outraged to discover University Police breaking into parked cars, ostensibly to move them.
  • November 12: Jack Weeden, chief of campus security, admits that the police department has been breaking into private vehicles and moving them. "I don't claim that it's legal," he states, quoted on page one of The Tiger dated November 13, 1970, (Vol. LXIV, No. 13). "It is really done as a favor to the students. This saves them $20 in towing charges." He promises that in the future, a towing company will be called to deal with improperly parked cars. Weeden's clearly casual approach to Constitutional rights will eventually get him fired in 1979.
  • November 13: The Tiger publishes front page photo of a protest button that reads "The Chronicle : F**K Censorship" with the terse cutline "*UC?*".
  • November 14: The Tigers are defeated by North Carolina in Death Valley, 7-42. In the worst sports-related accident in U.S. history, the chartered Southern Airways DC-9-31 airliner, registered N97S, c/n 47245/510, of the Marshall Thundering Herd football team crashes two miles short of Huntington, West Virginia. The victims included 37 players, 12 coaches and university staff members, 5 flight crew members and 21 townspeople. They were returning from a game with East Carolina. In 2006, Warner Bros. will release a film, "We Are Marshall", based on this accident and its aftermath. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0C0l8vvyN8
  • November 16: Actress and activist Jane Fonda speaks in the Amphitheatre at noon to a crowd of 4,000. There had been some question as to whether she would be able to keep the Speakers Bureau date as she had been arrested at Cleveland (Ohio) Hopkins Airport on November 2 and charged with drug smuggling when 105 vials of pills including amphetamines and barbituates were discovered in her luggage.
  • November 20: The Tiger publishes full-size reproduction of a letter dated November 17 from President Robert C. Edwards to Tiger editor Richard Harpootlian on page one reprimanding him for allowing the Chronicle protest button photo to be published in the November 13 issue of the campus paper.
  • November 21: South Carolina drops the Tigers, 32-38, in Memorial Stadium. Clemson suffers 3-8 season, 2-4 in conference, sixth place in the ACC.



1969 The 1970's 1971
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