Pledge Master: Another Perspective

By Thomas “Art” Hensley ’68

Dwight “Hatch” Hatcher ’70 (who later worked in Kenyon’s admissions office from 1976 to 1978) had a sometimes stentorian voice, and the build of a drill instructor, so he was the perfect choice to be the Beta Theta Pi pledge master for 1967-68. It was his job to keep the pledges in line and make them do things like study or paint the hallways of South Leonard, and to assign them sometimes silly and sometimes profane nicknames (pity John Foulkrod ’70). The pledges from the Class of 1972 were a creative mass, and one had access to a plane. Hatch was kidnaped and taken by air to a small airport outside Pittsburgh, I believe it was, and left there wearing nothing but his underwear. He was able to call his mom collect, I recall, and make his way back to Gambier. The pledge class’s punishment was that they had to buy a keg and share it with the upperclassmen, or something like that. If Murray Horwitz was the funniest person from that era, Hatch was probably next in line.